


The Orpheus Cure

by Zetared



Series: The Place You Need to Reach [2]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Blasphemy, Eating Disorders, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-11 11:02:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 51,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19108339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zetared/pseuds/Zetared
Summary: Aziraphale has returned Crowley from the very heart of Hell but has sacrificed fundamental pieces of himself along the way. Crowley decides to heal the angel with love (and a Greatest Hits world tour). Along the way, Aziraphale takes steps to prepare for a war between humanity and the powers of heaven and hell.





	1. From Eden Feat. Vocals by Freddie Mercury

**Author's Note:**

> This is a tale in two parts. Part one has an somewhat unhappy ending; part two is a fix-it. You need to have read part one for part two to make sense, I think. A reminder that this fic is intended to be book canon and therefore takes place in 1990-ish onward.
> 
> Tags for the overall fic are subject to change based on feedback; I'm often not a good judge of what is triggering. Please take care of yourselves.
> 
> EDIT 6/12/19: In the interest of not causing more upset, please let me provide the following disclaimer: From chapter 5 onward, the "blasphemy" tag gets serious. If you are a religious person, please tread carefully. More explicit warnings can be found in the chapter notes preceding chapter 5. Thank you!
> 
> EDIT 7/6/19: I've been told the elevator pitch for this story doesn't give the reader a good idea of what to expect. So, I guess I'll just be super blunt about what happens. Spoilers to follow:
> 
> \--  
> \--
> 
> In this fic, Aziraphale regains his lost pieces and also eventually becomes a god. Crowley does, eventually, also. There is a minor, non-graphic war plot. Apparently this fic isn't very romantic I the way people expect, either. 
> 
> I'll just...keep adding post scripts as asked to.

Despite it all, the angel and demon linger in London. Perhaps it’s simply a habit born of immortality--they hardly feel the need to rush, especially in these long and lazy days with no impending Apocalypse or other disaster hanging over their heads. Perhaps it is that Crowley doesn’t want to push and Aziraphale has no motivation, putting them into a quiet and unrecognized stalemate.

Whatever the reasons, justified or not, they stay in London and spend their time simply living their lives in the same tight orbit.

Crowley stays in Aziraphale’s line of sight.

Aziraphale keeps himself within Crowley’s reach. They survive, together.

“I wouldn’t think it entirely outside your sphere of influence. Surely some of them must belong on your side,” Aziraphale says, thoughtfully. They’re dozing under a large and welcoming tree in St. James’s, spread out on a tartan blanket. Crowley sprawls on his back over Aziraphale’s thighs and reaches up, nudging a grape between the angel’s lips. Aziraphale sighs around the fruit but gamely chews--just enough to keep from choking on it--and swallows. He has stopped comically grimacing every time he eats, long resigned to the chalky texture and sulphurous taste that all food and drink leaves in his mouth. He’s still thin as a rake, a fact that seems to perturb Crowley to no end--hence the determined hand feeding, even though Aziraphale is currently trying to make a point, thank you.

“Why’re you so hung up on this?” Crowley asks. He plucks a cube of cheese from the picnic basket and presses it against Aziraphale’s lips insistently. 

Azirapahle grasps the cheese between his teeth and doesn’t bother to swallow before replying. His table manners have suffered since coming back from Hell. “I’m hardly ‘hung up.’ I merely know that it’s important to you. And, considering the importance, I don’t know why you wouldn’t use the resources available to you to fix it.”

“Because, Angel, that wouldn’t be ethical. It’s a bit like a CEO of a company using his clout to bribe a politician to support a particular platform that’d make more money for his business.”

“That happens constantly, dear. It’s practically a time-honored political tradition.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s _right._ ”

“Do you truly mind, particularly?”

Crowley sighs. He roots about in the picnic basket and finds a bit of chocolate, which he eats himself. “No. I’m not bothered by it. It’d be harmless, in the grand scheme of things, if I did what you suggest.”

“Then why not do it?”

“Because. You wouldn’t want me to.”

Aziraphale considers this. He reaches over for the picnic basket and pulls off a grape, offering it to Crowley to eat from his fingers. “That was a long time ago. I don’t care, now. I just want you to be happy. And it would make you happy, wouldn’t it?”

“I’m not _un_ happy now.”

“But you’d be happier.”

Crowley reaches up and touches his fingertips against Aziraphale’s sharp cheekbone. “A lot of things would make me happier, Angel. That doesn’t mean I can just run about doing amoral and immoral deeds to get them all.”

Aziraphale frowns. “I don’t know why not. It’d be easy, even, for someone like you. You have all the right connections and all the lived experience needed to help you avoid any potential negative consequences.”

“You’re sounding like a supervillain again, Az.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

A silence falls in which Crowley forces a few more pieces of cheese at Aziraphale. 

“Besides,” Crowley admits, rubbing his greasy fingers on the tartan blanket, “It’d be an awful lot of trouble just to get Doctor Who back on the telly, wouldn’t it?”

\--

“I wish you’d mentioned this to me earlier.”

“I’d forgotten about it. And, besides, it hardly matters. I never use them.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“What’s the point, then?”

Crowley closes his eyes. Aziraphale can see him do it. Crowley is behind him, but they’ve set up a big vanity mirror in front so that the angel doesn’t lose sight of him, regardless. 

“You’re upset? It didn’t hurt. They’re just primaries.”

Crowley drags a gentle finger across the sharp, tidy line where the scissors had cut the tips of Aziraphale’s long, white primaries from his wings. “The worst part of this conversation is I think even before Hell, you’d have responded the exact same way.”

Aziraphale frowns in the mirror. “Crowley, please explain. I don’t understand why you’re upset.”

“And you would’ve, before,” Crowley mutters. “You would have understood even better than me.”

Aziraphale fidgets. His wings rustle with the motion, causing Crowley to pull his intent gaze away from them to meet Aziraphale’s eyes in the mirror, instead. 

“They’re only wings. And I don’t need to fly, anymore. I have you. And you have the Bentley.”

Crowley’s lips twitch. “You hate riding with me.”

Aziraphale has not, in point of fact, complained about his incessant speeding in months, not since--well. (That’s how they’ve started to dividing their lives, now; BH and AH--before and after Hell.) Aziraphale has no particular emotional attachment to the concept of road laws, anymore, and it’s not as if Crowley isn’t careful about making reality jump out of the way. The only thing he’s ever hit since acquiring the car was Anathema Device’s bicycle (with the girl on it, admittedly), and even that had been all right, in the end. 

“My dear,” Aziraphale presses.

“There’s a lot can be done, with angels’ wings, even nothing but the bits and pieces of some feathers. It’s risky. You have no idea what Santa Muerta might use them for--what kind of terrible things could she be doing, right now, because of you?”

Aziraphale lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “It’s already done, whatever it is. I can hardly get the feathers back.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“You keep telling me what the point isn’t. I wish you’d just tell me what the point is, instead.”

Crowley groans. He leans forward. Aziraphale reaches his wing back to support the demon’s weight. “I shouldn’t have to explain this to you. I don’t want to have to explain it to you.”

Aziraphale considers this solemnly. “You’re...upset that I’m not guilty?” he hazards, clearly uncertain. Probably because it’s so obviously preposterous. 

“I’m glad you’re not eaten up over it,” Crowley replies. “I am. It’s just…”

“You think I _should_ be ‘eaten up’ over it. And you’re upset that I don’t at least _know_ that I _should_ be guilty.”

Crowley waves a hand, at a loss. “It’s stupid.”

“It is certainly confusing,” Aziraphale agrees. 

“It shouldn’t matter. I don’t want you to suffer.”

He has flashes, sometimes. Moments of remembrance that feel in conflict with what he understands, rationally, he _should_ say and think and do. But the emotions are always distant, if not entirely absent. It takes hardly any effort to shrug it all aside. The only time he worries at all when Crowley is involved, and even then it only takes a word or two of assurance from the demon for Aziraphale to forget all about it. “I’m not suffering. I haven’t been suffering. I don’t think I _can,_ anymore.”

“I know,” Crowley sighs. He buries his face in Aziraphale’s feathers, causing his voice to muffle and vibrate against Aziraphale’s nerves all at once. “That’s the only reason I’m okay with what’s happening at all.”

\--

They’re holding hands and walking about the city. They do that quite often, now. Hold hands, that is. And walk, too. But most importantly the former bit.

Aziraphale has turned toward a shop window, peering at a baffling piece of furniture, when Crowley suddenly stumbles back, the motion pulling hard where their hands are clasped, tugging Aziraphale’s arm. 

He remembers, the memory knocking into him with force. Crowley, making a small noise of something unidentifiable, even now. Crowley, going limp. Crowley’s body, falling to the sidewalk, pulling Aziraphale down with him, anchored where their hands were clasped.

“Easy,” Crowley whispers in the present. He’s backed Aziraphale safely up against the shop window, out of the way of the streaming crowds, bracketing the angel’s body with his own, hiding him from sight. “Breathe, Aziraphale. You’re all right.”

Aziraphale blinks his way back to the present. His expression and body language melt from panic (wide eyes, parted lips, hunched shoulders and wringing hands) to confusion and into what Crowley has come to consider his “default mode.” Straight posture, muted expressions, eyes just shy of unnervingly blank. “Crowley?” Aziraphale asks. He peeks around the demon’s shoulder out at the London street. “What happened?”

“Somebody bumped into me. I think you--well, I think you might have had a flashback to the day Hell recalled me.”

Aziraphale purses his lips. “Yes. I did. I remember. You pulled on my hand.”

Crowley takes the angel’s hand up again and gives his fingers a light squeeze. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right. Hardly your fault. Can we stop somewhere for tea, do you think?”

Crowley allows the angel to blow right by the experience. It feels wrong and strange to _force_ Aziraphale to dwell on painful topics, even if it _feels_ wrong, how quickly and easily the angel tends to push deeper concerns aside. “You want to eat?” Crowley asks, surprised.

“No. But I don’t think we should keep walking, anymore. You look shaken.”

Crowley drops his head against Aziraphale’s shoulder. He’s been doing such quite a lot, as of late, too frustrated to meet Aziraphale’s gaze and too aware of the angel’s own mental state to act on it. He can only stifle his reactions and hide his expressions away until he’s regained his composure again. “I’m not the one who just had a trauma experience,” Crowley mutters, darkly.

“No, I did,” Aziraphale agrees, with that damned one-shoulder shrug. “But I’m quite all right, now, dear.”

Crowley stands back. “Fine. Let’s get tea.”

\--

It could have continued on like that for centuries, the angel and the demon trapped in a limbo-state, languishing in a reality where everything was simply “not quite right.”

But then the tiniest of decisions spiraled into an incident that forced both of them to take action at last.

\--

For the first time in months, Aziraphale wakes up in Crowley’s apartment and finds himself entirely alone.

At first, nothing seemed amiss. For all that he truly enjoyed a good sleep, Crowley was not predisposed toward a long lie-in, especially if they’d gone to sleep at a decent time the night before. Aziraphale, having found himself quite keen on a good eight hours at least if not more, often woke alone in the big, soft bed.

The strangeness did not occur to him until later, after the angel had tugged his dressing gown over his full set of striped pajamas and slipped his feet into his slippers and padded into the kitchen. 

Strange, to not find the demon in that place, fussing over a (typically mostly miracled) breakfast. Crowley had long ago made it his mission each day to try and find something, anything the angel would eat without relentless prompting. His attempts are for naught, but Aziraphale appreciates them all the same.

Now, Aziraphale leaves the oddly quiet kitchen and walks into the living area, instead. Sometimes, if Aziraphale wakes especially late in the day, the demon can be found here, curled up on his ultra-trendy couch and watching some bit of brain-melting mush or other on the telly. 

But the couch is empty, and the TV is off. The plant room is uninhabited, too. The plants betray nothing, no sign at all of where their overbearing master might be.

Feeling a trickle of disquiet, now, Aziraphale pops his head into the less likely places. Their never-used bathroom, the always-empty larder, the equally bare closets. Nothing, no one. Aziraphale is alone. 

He has not been alone, not really, in a long time. Not since Hell. Crowley has been there, often within reach, _always_ within shouting distance, for months and months. But now…

The feeling of panic is startling in its sheer intensity. Aziraphale presses a hand to his chest, alarmed by the rapid beat of his heart. 

_Why is he gone?_

Aziraphale breathes in slowly through his nose and out his mouth. 

_Why would he have gone?_

Aziraphale wanders the rooms of the apartment. Just in case. 

_He’s gone to get away from me. He’d only go away from me if he’s doing something he doesn’t want me to see. It’s strange, isn’t it? How he’s always so amenable, so transparent. That isn’t right, is it? He’s a demon, isn’t he? He’s hiding something. He’s hiding something, and he’s gone away so that I won’t know about it._

Aziraphale chokes abruptly, overwhelmed by the memory of sensation. Cold. A bitter, wet chill in the air. A pervasive, invasive black smog, the smoke full of red, hungry eyes. 

_What a fool you are_ , the voices hiss.

Aziraphale jerks bodily, forcing his mind away from the enticing, dangerous remembrance. 

_That isn’t--I’m not there, anymore_. But the impulses have remained. His trust in Crowley is finite, limited only to what he can see and hear and, sometimes, remember. He knows Crowley, intimately. But there are aspects of Crowley that he _doesn’t_ know and has never been privy to.

 _What does he get up to, when I’m not there_? _What is he getting up to right_ now _?_

Aziraphale all but runs from the bedroom back to the plant room. Its a large, open space with a skylight above, filtering in the morning light. The plants are mostly ferns and tiny, potted bushes and trees--Crowley prefers greenery over all else--but there are few scattered, blooming flowers among the lot. Aziraphale reaches out and, as has become a habit of his, gently strokes the broad leaf of a fern between his fingertips. 

He seeks calm.

_He’s left._

Aziraphale’s fingers still and pinch tight.

_He’s left. I’ve seen it. Every day, he gets just a bit more fed up. I’m not the person he expects me to be, and it chafes. He’s hit his limit. He’ll have absconded away sometime in the night with no intention of coming back._

Aziraphale, hardly cognizant of it, plucks the big leaf from its perch. He twists it in his hands, folding it over until the veins snap and the surface breaks. _The world has gotten so very large. And I’ve no way to reach out to him, no way to know where he might’ve gone. If he wants to stay hidden, he can. I’ll never see him ever again, not ever._

The torn tatters of the leaf fall in spirals, gliding to the floor. Aziraphale plucks another leaf. _I’ve mucked it up. I’m broken, and I’ve done something so wrong that he can’t forgive it. What did I do? There’s so many things it could have been, aren’t there? I’ve likely been making a mess of things every minute and not even known it._

Another leaf. Another. He starts to fretfully tug them off by the handful, worrying them between his fingers, staining his skin. 

_The old me would have known what he was doing wrong. The old me would never have done wrong in the first place. The old me was a real, proper angel. The old me was a whole, complete being. He could feel things. He understood things. He was never untrusting or faithless or angry or violent. He was never greedy or selfish or probably ever sinful at_ all _._

 _I_ hate _him_.

Rage is a comfort. Aziraphale remembers it. He’d felt it in Hell, burning through his blood, stoking the fire of his blade. He grabs the plant by its heavy pot and pulls it, with a cry, to the floor. It shatters spectacularly, soil exploding across the hard surface, bits of fern breaking away from the base and skittering across the room. 

_I hate this. I hate Crowley for leaving, I hate myself for making him leave. I hate Hell for making me like this, I hate God for letting it happen, I hate--_

He has another pot in his arms, ready to chuck it against the wall, when two arms grab him from behind, circling around his waist.

“No!” he shouts. In his head, a twisted St. James’s Park flashes through his memory. The familiar stench of the demon army fills his nose. His muscle memory kicks in with a flourish and he strikes back, bashing his heel against the attacker’s shin, whirling around on his other foot and smashing the heavy ceramic pot down over the demon’s head. The pot shatters in his hands, flaying his skin.

Aziraphale pants for breath, battle ready and snarling, hand _aching_ for his sword.

Crowley hisses, snake-like, from his sprawl on the ground. He gives his head a shake, dislodging fallen clumps of potting soil everywhere. His head is bleeding, at first, but a pass of his hand miracles it away. His glasses askew and bent out of shape, Crowley growls low and bats them off to the floor among the debris. His expression is twisted up with absolute rage burning almost hot enough to match Aziraphale’s own.

“The _fuck_ , Angel? What the _hell_ are you playing at? You’ve killed my plants!”

Aziraphale looks about himself. The hot anger boiling in his blood eases away, leaving him only empty and, faintly, confused.

“I’d thought you’d left,” the angel explains, in a whisper. He licks his lips, swallows dryly. “I panicked.”

\--

It would take only a moment to miracle it all to rights, again. But they don’t. They tell themselves, in moments like these, that it’d be a waste of power. But, in truth, there are some messes that one must tidy up by hand. 

Aziraphale drops to his knees and starts to clear up the broken bits of pottery and smears of soil, first. Crowley makes a sharp, angry noise and grabs the angel by the arm, hauling him bodily onto his bare feet again. 

“Don’t be an idiot. You’re bleeding. C’mere.”

Crowley pushes him hard into the couch. Aziraphale falls into it and stays where he’s put. He stares at his hands, thoughtfully. They’re all riddled with lacerations and layered thick with damp mud and bits of greenery. They’re also shaking, faintly, but Aziraphale figures it’s a physical side effect of the adrenaline crash, and he doesn’t worry about it. 

“Give them here,” Crowley demands, curtly. His body is tight as a wire, every movement he makes broadcasting his ire.

Aziraphale presents his hands.

Crowley drops them into a bowl of water perched between his knees and starts to rub at them rather too vigorously with a wet hand towel. It hurts, but Aziraphale just sits and flinches and winces his way through it while Crowley completely ignores him. 

“Good enough,” Crowley declares, once the water is black with muck and Aziraphale’s dark hands are no longer grayed out with streaks of the dirt.

Crowley turns Aziraphale’s hands palms up and pours a liberal amount of miracled disinfectant over them. Aziraphale keens and jerks back, but Crowley’s hold on his wrist is vice-tight and uncompromising. He douses the palm again for good measure and then wraps it all up in a bright, sterile bandage. He repeats the procedure on Aziraphale’s other hand, once done, snaps all the supplies out of sight, pushes Aziraphale’s hands into his lap and tells him, sharply to “stay there and don’t _fucking_ move, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale doesn’t move.

Crowley returns a good hour or so later, looking tired and streaky with dirt. There’s a tattered flower petal clinging to his dark hair, but Aziraphale can’t bring himself to mention it.

Crowley throws himself down on the chair across from the couch, utterly unmindful of the muck he leaves on the furniture by doing so. “Explain yourself.” Crowley snaps a glass of some hard liquor into his hand and takes a large gulp.

“I thought you’d gone.”

“I did go. I went for a _walk_.”

“I didn’t think you’d come back.”

“Why wouldn’t I come back? I live here.”

“I thought you’d gotten fed up and left.”

Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose. He realizes he’s not wearing his glasses and hastily miracles himself up a new pair. It’s a bad sign. Aziraphale has taught himself that when Crowley hides his eyes in his company, it’s because he wants to hid his reactions from the angel’s sight. And, now with muted emotional empathy, the angel finds it nearly impossible to guess at the demon’s motivations without his expressions as a helpful guiding light. 

“I wouldn’t do that,” Crowley says, drawn and resigned.

“I didn’t know that.”

“You _should_.”

“I couldn’t be _certain_.”

“So you decided to take it out on my plants?”

“I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I didn’t even realize, at first. And then I was just...very angry.”

“Why?”

Aziraphale makes a soft noise. He pulls his knees up and hugs them.

“Don’t do that,” Crowley hisses out, his tongue actually going entirely forked in his irritation. “Don’t sit like that. I hate it.”

Aziraphale swallows heavily. Sitting this way makes him feel better. He’d picked up the habit in Hell, and he relies on it to provide a sense of stability in a world gone mad. Slowly, he releases his knees and forces his legs to stretch out and bend at the knee. His shoulders hunch in a painful arch. He starts to pick at his sleeve.

“I was angry because you’d left.”

“I _went for a walk_.”

“I was angry because I’d made you leave.”

Crowley shakes his head. He refills his glass and throws it back. “You didn’t.”

“Why did you need to take a walk?” Aziraphale asks, mildly. 

“Fuck off.”

“I made you leave, and I didn’t think you’d want to come back. I was mad because of what I’d done and what you’d done, and I was especially mad at my old self, because none of it would have happened if he were here, like he should be.”

“There’s no old you. You’re just you. You’re thinking differently, now, that’s all.”

“I’m not thinking _correctly_ , now.” Aziraphale picks and picks at his sleeve until he finally creates a hole in the fabric. He wiggles his fingers into it and breathes a small sigh. “You’ve been patient. And kind. But I don’t think you can go on with me as I am, anymore. And, honestly, dear, I’m not entirely certain I can, either.”

Crowley hums in noncommittal agreement. 

“I’m sorry about your plants.”

Crowley hums again.

“You had an idea, before. I think we should try it.”

Crowley throws himself sideways in his chair, tossing his knees over one arm and leaning his back against the other. He looks up at the ceiling and avoids looking at Aziraphale entirely. “What if it doesn’t work?”

Aziraphale tugs at the edges of the hole in his sleeve, watching the fabric stretch. “I imagine we’ll have to part ways, eventually, if it doesn’t.”

Crowley looks over at him. Even with the sunglasses and a lack of emotional cues, Aziraphale knows he’s incredulous. “I’m not leaving you.”

“That’s very noble. But I don’t think you’ll have much choice, given enough time. I think you’d need to go, after a while, for your own sake.”

“And what’d happen to you, if I did such a thing?”

Aziraphale considers this. “I’d manage.”

“Liar.”

Aziraphale lifts a shoulder. “I would _try_ to manage. For you.”

Crowley snarls softly into his glass. “Of course you would. Whatever. I wouldn’t leave you.”

“Then, if this doesn’t do the trick, we’ll be stuck with each other. You’ll be intensely unhappy for the rest of eternity and I--well, honestly, I don’t know. I suppose I’d keep on as I am currently.”

“Forever,” Crowley adds, morosely.

“Most likely.”

“Well. Guess s’better to try to give it a try than not, then, hm?” Crowley asks. He’s slurring, by now, and still drinking.

Aziraphale stands up and, cautiously, approaches the demon’s chair. When Crowley doesn’t shoo him away, he eases himself onto his knees in front of it and rests his head against Crowley’s shoulder until Crowley, with a heavy, drunken sigh, concedes and starts to stroke his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair. 

“‘Ve’ got a bit of plant in it,” Crowley mutters, plucking something from his curls.

“So do you,” Aziraphale replies, burying his face against the fabric of Crowley’s coat. He can feel Crowley’s body shift as the demon runs a hand through his own hair. He makes a soft, unhappy sound at the crushed petals he knocks loose. 

“Tomorrow,” Crowley says. “We’re g’na start tomorrow.”

“All right,” Aziraphale says, peaceably. “If you like.”

\--

They spend the day in separate corners. Crowley disappears again into the plant room and doesn’t emerge all afternoon. Aziraphale curls up into a tight ball in the bedroom, thinking about as little as possible. Once, he would have passed time spent during one of Crowley’s moods alone in his ‘shop, tending to his collection. He would have taken delight in organizing the shelves and reading the works. He could have lost himself easily for days at a time like that. But he’d left his joy behind him as a toll to Hell, and nothing that had once kept him energized and engaged did so much as stir a vague interest in him, now.

He could barely convince himself to get out of bed in the mornings if not for Crowley’s presence, pulling him into conversations that occupy if not entirely satisfy him. He finds his time with Crowley acceptable. He finds a measure of _comfort_ in it, at the very least. He has that, still.

Aziraphale’s body starts to complain by the time the sun settles low along the horizon. Since returning from Hell, his the physical needs of his vessel are more persistent than before. Hunger, exhaustion, thirst--they all weigh upon him, and of the three, only sleep is easy. Aziraphale ignores the gnawing in his stomach and pulls his knees tight against his chest, hiding his face away against a pillow, chased there by the glare of the setting sun as it filters a last few blinding rays in through the bedroom window.

A hand, familiar, strokes flatly over his spine until he rouses awake. 

“You should eat some dinner,” Crowley says. 

Aziraphale sits up in the bed, hazy. “What time is it?”

“‘Bout eight.”

“Sit with me?” Aziraphale asks, hesitant. He’s not sure he’s welcome, after the events of the day. 

Crowley’s shaded eyes give away nothing. But he sits on the edge of the bed, regardless.

Aziraphale reaches a hand out over the mattress, letting it rest between them. He releases a heavy breath when the demon reaches back and laces their fingers.

“I’m not mad at you,” Crowley says, “Well, that’s not true. I’m mad at you. But I’m only a bit miffed, really, and I’m getting less mad about it all the time.”

“Are the plants--can you--?”

“Perked them up. Took a lot of miracling, but I suppose that’s all right.”

“I am truly sorry. I know you love them.”

“And I know you love me. Sometimes, things that are loved get hurt.”

Aziraphale squeezes the hand in his. “Where will we go, tomorrow?”

Crowley shakes his head slightly. “I haven’t decided, yet. I’ll give you an itinerary in the morning, shall I?”

Aziraphale smiles softly. “If you like. You know I’ll go wherever you wish.”

Crowley nods. “I know.”

“It’s not only because I’ve no agenda of my own to follow, you know. I think, even if I were feeling my old self, I’d still go where you went--likely at a slower pace and probably the long way ‘round. But, eventually, my dear, you and I would end up in the same place.”

Crowley gives in and rolls himself fully onto the bed. He lies on his side and Aziraphale apes the motion so that they can be eye to eye. “That’s why I’d never leave. Even if this doesn’t work, even if it gets too difficult for me to stick around, it won’t matter. We’re like magnets, you and me. Drawn together.”

“Should I apologize?”

Crowley snorts softly. “You never would have even thought to, before. Even when you wouldn’t--couldn’t--admit you and I had something deeper, you never would have apologized for sticking around. You wanted to. Even when you clung with all your might to the idea that it was wrong and unangelic, you wanted what we had together more than you regretted it. You would never apologize, especially not to me.”

“Good, because I’m not especially keen to do so now, either. You’re stuck with me, Crowley, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, well. Same to you.”

\--

Aziraphale does not wake up alone the next morning, to his dim relief. Crowley is, in fact, on Aziraphale’s side of the bed, his leg and arm tossed over Aziraphale’s body, snuggled in close. Crowley’s breath is warm against Aziraphale’s neck, his free hand clenched hard in Aziraphale’s pajama top--the same top he’d worn all the previous day. Aziraphale has a faint impression he should be troubled by that in some way. He lets it drift away.

“My dear,” Aziraphale murmurs, but Crowley doesn’t so much as twitch. Aziraphale closes his eyes again. He won’t be able to fall back asleep, but the least he can do is be silent and still until the demon wakes up on his own.

“M’n’ing,” Crowley manages a few hours later. He yawns and rubs his face against Aziraphale’s chest with a sleepy groan. “Five m’minutes?”

Aziraphale smiles faintly. “If you like. I don’t believe we have a deadline in place.”

Crowley hums lowly. “No, no. Should get going. Just gimmie a bit.”

“You’ve never been an easy riser, not since you first started sleeping,” Aziraphale says, mildly. 

“S’all propaganda. ‘Evil never sleeps,’ ‘no rest for the wicked.’ Garbage.”

“And yet sloth is such a popular deadly sin.”

“M’well, all the other ones take a lot of effort. S’popular because it’s simple. Lie down for a long time and, bam, you’ve done it. Great work, team. Lust is practically an olympic sport in comparison--if you do it right, I mean.”

Aziraphale hums. “You’re joking, I think?”

Crowley groans. “ _Yes_ , Angel.”

“Where are we going today?” Aziraphale asks. 

“You don’t actually care where we go,” Crowley points out. He’s turned his head so that his ear rests on Aziraphale’s chest. The angel suspects the demon is listening to his heart beat. 

“No,” Aziraphale admits. “But I thought you might like to talk about it.”

“There’s some things I’ll have to do before we can leave. I’ll talk to you about it once it’s all settled. Is that all right?”

“Of course.”

Crowley eventually rallies himself upright and off the bed. He pads out of the room and transitions midstep from sleep-toseled and bleary to fully dressed and perfectly kempt. Aziraphale slides off the bed after him and goes to get ready, also. For a moment he’s stuck, reaching for his clothes from their borrowed space in Crowley’s closet. But then it strikes him as odd--why isn’t he miracling himself in order like Crowley does? It’d be so much faster. Certainly, he has a habit of tending to his appearance without cheating, but _why_?

Aziraphale miracles himself ready for the day and follows Crowley out into the kitchen. “Why don’t I miracle myself for the day, like you do?”

Crowley raises his eyebrows at him over his newly-miracled shades. “You’re dressed.”

“I miracled it. It’s much faster. Why don’t I always do it like that?”

Crowley frowns at the angel. He turns away, muttering something underneath his breath. He fiddles with nothing for a moment before miracling them up two cups of tea and a full English breakfast on a platter. He turns around again and sets it out on the counter in front of the angel. “Ah, something about moral standards. I don’t really understand it. To be really honest, Angel, I’m pretty sure you get the clothes tailor made ‘cos of your materialistic streak. Why you don’t just miracle them on after the fact, I don’t know. You used to get scolded from time to time by manage for being frivolous with your miracles. Maybe it’s like that.”

Aziraphale muses over that while Crowley presses a fork into his hand. 

“Eat,” the demon commands. “I’m going to go make some calls.”

Aziraphale waves him off and frowns at his plate. He spears a sausage on the fork and sighs at it. “My true enemy,” he accuses, and then drops it back onto the plate. He starts with the tomatoes, instead. At least those he can swallow quickly without much fuss.

He’s still picking at the plate a half hour later when Crowley comes back. The demon looks at his plate and sighs. “Would it be easier if I made you a smoothie or something? They at least already taste foul.”

Aziraphale pushes the plate forward. “I think I’d likely choke on it. Have you finished?”

“Yeah. We’re all set. I think we might need to stay for a while. Do you mind?”

Aziraphale smiles slightly. “You know I don’t.”

“Still feels weird, to not ask.”

“Where are we going?” Aziraphale asks.

Crowley shrugs. He glances to the side, a gesture that Aziraphale has determined means he’s feeling a bit embarrassed or otherwise uncertain of himself. “I thought it made the most sense to start somewhere close and somewhere we know is important. I’ve rented out a place in Tadfield.”


	2. Act I: We are the Champions - Tadfield

Aziraphale is surprised, as they near the small hamlet, to feel that same overwhelming aura of love as before. He closes his eyes, pressing his hand unconsciously to his chest. 

“Love, you said,” Crowley says. “Still there, I take it?”

Aziraphale smiles. A real, genuine, wide smile. “Yes.”

“Well, that’s something, at least, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale opens his eyes, glancing askance at the demon. “Did you really not feel it, before?”

Crowley keeps his eyes on the road much more than usual. “Couldn’t be sure. Always feels like that, around you.”

Aziraphale’s resulting smile is also wide, if much more brief. “You’re a wonder, my dear. I’m so lucky to have you.”

“Yeah, right. Thanks. You, too. Listen, I want lunch. Do you? No, you don’t, obviously. But is it all right, if we stop? I think there’s a pub or something like it.”

Aziraphale looks away, obligingly letting the demon steer them away from the emotional topic. “Mmhm. That sounds fine.”

The pub is as picturesque as only eleven years of the influence of a reality-bending Antichrist could have made it. It’s open and warm and full of dense, wooden furniture and the pungent scent of hops. When Aziraphale and Crowley enter, the barkeep offers them a friendly hullo and tells them to take their pick of seats. Crowley, out of habit, takes them to a back corner, out of the way of prying eyes and ears. Aziraphale follows him.

“What do you expect us to find in Tadfield?”

Crowley picks up a pepper pot and fidgets it between his fingers. “Haven’t a clue. It’s a stab in the dark, honestly. The plan is to just travel about and hope something twigs for you. I figured, if nothing else, it gets us out of London for a while. Something new.”

“The world is a large place, and we’ve associations with much of it. You called this a ‘greatest hits’ list. Why?”

Crowley ducks his head. “Ah, well. It stands out, doesn’t it? A big hurrah. We were part of something big, here. And it started a new sort of chapter, didn’t it?”

“What happened in Tadfield had a direct impact on my journey to Hell. They never would have recalled you, if not for what happened here. There was no need.”

“That, too,” Crowley agrees.

A waitress comes and takes their orders. Crowley foists a basket of fish and chips off on the angel and orders a bowl of the house soup for himself. 

Aziraphale can just make out the buzz of a radio from the back. It’s always nice to listen to something other than Queen. (Though Aziraphale will admit the band had grown on him quite a lot after those first few days post-Tadfield. He might even feel warmly toward them now, even without his sense of joy.)

“Did I ever actually thank you? For getting me out.”

Aziraphale focuses his gaze on the dark wood of the table. It has large, sanded whirls all through it. He trails his fingers over a flattened knot. “I can’t recall. You needn’t, regardless. You know I couldn’t have done anything else.”

“I do. But you could have, really.”

Aziraphale looks up. He can’t read Crowley’s expression through the lenses of his glasses. “I don’t know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking about six thousand years, I suppose.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Would you have ever said it, if you’d had the choice?”

Aziraphale doesn’t need to ask what he means by that, at least. “My dear, I truly always assumed you knew.”

“I did. As much as I could, I mean. But you never _said_.”

Aziraphale presses his foot against Crowley’s under the table. “I had a responsibility. It was important to me.”

“You had to lose trust and innocence to lose your faith. You lost a lot more than that before you could admit you loved me.”

Aziraphale’s brows draw close. “Do you think I’ll try to take it back, if I become whole again?”

“When.”

“If,” Aziraphale says, with a tight smile. “Remember, dear. I also have no hope.”

“Hopeless, trustless, faithless. And _then_ you could say it.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale hazards. They are walking on delicate ground. He doesn’t wish to tromp over something he cannot later revive. “I can’t give you what you need, whatever it might be. I’ll say to you now whatever assurances you wish, but if you’re hoping that I will know them without prompting, I do not, and I cannot. Not right now.”

Crowley licks his lips. He looks away and then back again. “Can you just tell me while you can? Until you stop wanting to, anymore. Can you say it, from time to time?”

Aziraphale knows there is something wrong about this conversation, but he isn’t sure what. He gets that odd, misplaced feeling only when he’s about to do something entirely in conflict with his former self, something he never would have agreed to before. “Will it hurt you, if I do?”

“No. I mean. Maybe a little, when it _stops_. But not until then.”

“All right. I love you, Crowley.”

The demon relaxes. “Thanks.”

Aziraphale, feeling more than slightly out of the step, just nods and files this action away as something he should remember to do sporadically in the future, as asked.

\--

Crowley won’t allow them to leave until Aziraphale has finished his chips, at least. Aziraphale breaks them into tiny pieces and throws them back like medication. If he can try to avoid lingering on any of it, it’s not so terrible. It’s trying to wash it down later that’s the real trial. Even water sticks in his throat and coats his teeth with something utterly vile. 

“You look green,” Crowley says, worriedly.

“I won’t vomit in your car.”

Crowley snorts. “That’s not why I’m worried.”

Aziraphale tilts his head, appraising him candidly.

“That’s not the _only_ reason I’m worried,” Crowley amends.

Aziraphale manages to keep his lunch down. The drive from the pub to their rental is not too terribly long. It’s a friendly looking cottage, just on the outskirts. Quiet, peaceful. Aziraphale thinks he’d have a particular feeling toward the squat and tiny house, normally, but beyond a sense of gratitude that they have a solid roof overhead, he doesn’t know what.

“Thought we could settle in for the rest of the evening. And then tomorrow go tour the town?”

Aziraphale nods, distracted. The inside of the cottage is already furnished. There’s a squat, cotton couch in a shade of dark blue, a dining table for two made of pale wood. The bedroom has a bed a fair bit smaller than the one in Crowley’s apartment, but Aziraphale doesn’t mind.

“What do you think?”

“It’s fine.”

Crowley nods. “Yeah, that’s what I thought you might say.”

“Should I say something else?”

The demon’s smile is wry. “Nah. Hey, I’m knackered. Come with me.”

“I thought you wanted to settle in?”

“I’ll snap up some things into the drawers later. I want to settle _me_ in, right now. I need a good pillow. You’ll do.”

Aziraphale follows him into the living room and sits on the end. Crowley flops down near him and then stretches out, laying his head on Aziraphale’s lap. He tosses his shades onto the glass-topped coffee table. 

“See, now? Proper sloth. Dead easy. Lie down and you’re done.”

Aziraphale smiles slightly. He takes to stroking his fingers over Crowley’s hair. “Virtue is ever-vigilant,” he reminds the demon, softly. 

“Good thing there’s none of that here, then, eh?”

Aziraphale considers this. Admittedly, the demon has a point. 

“You could tempt me into so many things, now,” Aziraphale murmurs, thoughtfully. “Why haven’t you?”

“How would you know if I hadn’t?”

Aziraphale twists Crowley’s soft, straight hair between his fingers. “All we’ve mostly done is lie about bantering a bit while you make me eat things. Hardly seems very wicked. Even I know that.” He smiles. “You haven’t even tried to talk me into dunking any ducks.”

“It’s not as fun when you’re not disapproving. I told you.”

A silence falls between them and then Crowley says, cautiously. “You touch me a lot, now.”

“Do I?” Aziraphale replies mildly, as if the angel is not that second preening his fingers through Crowley’s hair and running the fingertips of his other hand over Crowley’s brows. His hands are still bandaged, but they wouldn’t have to be. He could miracle it all better, but he won’t. There’s the principle of the thing, of course, but mostly Aziraphale doesn’t miracle things, much, since Hell. He’s gotten out of the habit after so long without. 

“I think you wouldn’t, normally.”

“You aren’t coercing me into touching you, Crowley,” Aziraphale replies, patiently.

“How would you be sure?”

“Because I lack trust, joy, empathy, innocence, and hope. Darling. I still have heart.”

Crowley swallows. When he speaks, his voice sounds thick. “I don’t want you to regret it later.”

“Just let me love you, you old snake. It’s just like sloth. Just relax and let it be. Simple.”

\--

Aziraphale dreams. He rarely does, ever, but when they come about, Santa Muerta is always there. 

“You’re on your quest, now, I see,” she greets him. She’s wearing a pinstripe suit coat and trousers. The shirt beneath is silk and has a cowl neckline. She fiddles with the edge of it as Aziraphale approaches and sits down at the wrought iron table. They are in the outdoor seating of some small bistro in a region that Aziraphale cannot guess at but, judging by the climate, is tropical in nature. 

“It became more pressing.”

“It isn’t your fault.”

“He loves those plants. More than loves. They represent something to him. Something he’s lost. Something he needs.”

“He’s lost _you_. He needs _you_.”

“Is he right? Would I have treated him differently, had I come out of Hell unscathed? He seems so certain. But, for me, I can’t imagine acting any differently after what we went through. I want to tell him I love him. I want to touch him as anyone would someone they love. If I were whole, would it stop? Would I back away? He’ll be so wounded, if I do.”

“He’s cynical,” she reminds him, sounding faintly amused. “He’s cynical, and your lack of hope has left you suggestable to it.”

“That’s not an answer, really. Is he _right_?”

“There is only one way to know.”

Aziraphale taps his fingers against the molded metal surface of the table. “I am afraid.”

She nods her skeletal head. “You were afraid before, too. You were terrified, I think, of going down there. Of failing in your mission. But you did not fail, did you? So your fears? Unfounded. Not useful to you. Fear can only take you so far, _angelus_. There comes a point where you must have faith.”

Aziraphale snorts. “But I don’t, anymore. I lost that, too.”

“So build new faith. Believe in something different, instead.”

“I don’t trust myself.”

She watches him, patiently.

“And I do trust Crowley, but there’s this _doubt_ always in the back of my head--it makes it so hard to think, especially if he isn’t there to talk me out of it.”

Santa Muerta regards him with hollow sockets. “Was your faith in God absolute?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The faith that you lost in Hell, it was for God and His plan, yes? Did you never waver, in your belief in it? Did you never question? Did you, truly, never _doubt_?”

“I-I’m an angel. I--.”

“Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale clears his throat. “There were times. Brief ones! But...there were times when I would doubt. Just a bit.”

Santa Muerta nods. “True faith is never perfect. That is what makes it faith. If you so badly need a guiding star, sweet one, I suggest you look to the light that is nearest at hand.”

\--

Aziraphale nudges Crowley’s shoulder until the demon wakes.

“Whatsit?” Crowley manages, blearily. “All right?”

“Kiss me,” Aziraphale demands.

Crowley sits up, far more awake. “Er, what?”

“Please.”

Crowley rubs his eyes. “I’m dreaming?”

“I want you to. I _need_ you to, actually.”

“Troubling, that.”

“Why?” Aziraphale demands. He tugs at Crowley’s arm, pulling him closer. “I’m asking.”

“Very suddenly, in the middle of the night. Maybe you should think about this, a minute.”

“I have! Many minutes for the last six-thousand years.”

Crowley raises a brow at him.

“Well, all right. Not quite that long. But not so long after!”

Crowley shakes his head. “You’ve had a nightmare or something. You’re spooked. Understandable. Still, better not.”

“ _Crowley,_ ” Aziraphale says, with the most genuine emotion he’s displayed at the demon in ages, excepting his meltdown in the plant room a few days hence. 

Crowley’s yellow eyes go soft, searching. “What’s wrong, Angel?”

Aziraphale takes a hiccuping breath. “You don’t--you don’t believe that I love you, and I haven’t an idea at all how to fix it.”

Crowley makes a soft, speculative noise. “I believe it. I know you do. I just think--if things were different, or, er, the same, I suppose--I think you’d keep it under your hat.”

“That’s _cruel_ , Crowley.”

Crowley hums, still thoughtful. “I always asked too much of you. Kept applying the peer pressure, mostly. Little temptations, here and there. I never figured I’d get everything I wanted, because I wanted so much. What we had--whatever you’ll give--it’s enough. It always has been. You weren’t cruel, Az. If anything, you were generous to a fault.”

Aziraphale remembers four stacks of books. “I nearly turned around.”

Crowley doesn’t have to ask what he means. “You didn’t.”

“I wanted to.”

Crowley tugs at his wrist, pulls him into a loose embrace. “Whatever you’ll give, I’ll take. Just know...if you give an inch, I’ll still want a mile. And, right now, as you are, I’m afraid you won’t know when to stop me.”

Aziraphale sighs, relaxing against the demon. “That’s because I don’t ever want you to stop.”

Crowley gives him a gentle squeeze and pulls back. “You don’t want me to kiss you.”

“I do.”

“The other you. He wouldn’t. I know that much, at least.” 

Aziraphale closes his eyes. His past self ruins everything. “Then I won’t ask again.”

Crowley breathes a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

\--

Aziraphale creates a barrier between them, after that. They lounge together, still, from time to time. And he can’t quite stop from holding Crowley’s hand whenever the opportunity arises (“I _know_ it’s all right, Crowley; I held your hand before Hell, didn’t I?”). Otherwise, though, he’s careful. He’s discreet.

For all that, they share the bed, even if they keep to their own sides of it.

And he keeps his promise, too stubborn to recant it. What harm can it possibly do?

“Good morning,” Aziraphale greets Crowley every day, “I love you.”

How can it possibly be the wrong choice, when Crowley always lights up from the inside out in response? 

\--

They’ve been living and exploring in Tadfield for nearly two weeks before catching sight of a familiar face.

“Hello there, Adam Young!” Aziraphale greets.

The blond boy with the tousled curls and cherubic face trades glances with his gathered friends. “Hello,” he says, warily. “Are you new here?”

Then it’s Aziraphale and Crowley’s turn to share a glance.

Crowley answers, “We’re on holiday from London. We met your mother the other day at the grocery. She talked about you and your friends and your bikes.”

Aziraphale peers at the Them and their vehicles with interest. Adam’s riding a bike with a basket on it. It’s been painted over in some places with a dark green hue, but the angel can see the pink underneath. “That’s a lovely bike you have.”

“Thanks. S’Pepper’s, originally, but she didn’t like it, so me and her switched. It’s better, anyhow, ‘cos this one has a basket for my dog.”

The former hellhound yips at the sound of his name. 

“On account of the fact that he gets tired quick when we ride too far. Small legs, I reckon.”

“I imagine that’s right,” Crowley replies, in a dazed sort of way.

“Well, it was nice to meet you, Adam,” Aziraphale says.

“Sure.”

“We’re Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley by the way. We’re renting Tabor Cottage. You and your friends are welcome to stop by. The property has a treehouse in the backyard. Crowley and I aren’t using it, obviously. But you and your friends could, if you’d like.”

Crowley glances at Aziraphale with a ‘what are you playing at?’ expression painfully clear on his face, even with the sunglasses.

Wonderfully unprepossessing, the children talk among each other in obvious delight.

“Sure,” Adam says, imperiously. “I guess we could do that.”

“Best to ask your parents, first,” Crowley interjects, shooting Aziraphale another dark look.

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale agrees, entirely unrepentant. 

They watch the Them ride off until out of sight. 

“What the hell was that?”

“I remembered what you said about me and humanity. An observer, only. No true connections.”

“They’re _kids_ ,” Crowley replies, doubtfully. “They’ll be barging into our yard at all hours, now. And we do _not_ have a treehouse.”

Aziraphale smiles at him.

Crowley sighs. “Oh, all right. But I’m putting up a fence around it with a side gate. I won’t have them walking through the cottage to get at it.”

“Thank you, dear. I’m grateful.” 

“You better be.”

\--

For all his grousing, Crowley takes to the puzzle of miracling up a treehouse with obvious glee. 

“Isn’t it a bit...ostentatious?”

Crowley has his head tilted back, gazing up the giant ash. It’s twice as wide as any other natural tree on the property, its branches perfectly suited to carry the weight of the hefty house. 

“It’s only got the one room. And only two stories. Seems reasonable, to me.”

“You should put in a basket and a wench. For the dog.”

Crowley beams at him. “Clever Angel.”

Aziraphale hums. “They’ll be by after lunch, I would imagine.”

“That’s plenty of time. Come up with me.”

“What? My dear, no.”

“Why not? It’s safe. Especially for us.”

Aziraphale shifts awkwardly on his two feet. “Crowley. Your body is impervious. I made sure. But--.”

Crowley’s bright look fades with the reminder. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“From treehouses?”

“The treehouse is stable as a _rock_. Are you doubting my craftsmanship?”

“Crowley.”

“From anything. Everything.” A pause. “Especially treehouses.”

“I daren’t climb up to it. You know I’ve not the knack for it you do.”

“Comes of being a snake,” Crowley admits. “Can’t help my natural aptitude for slithering about. Go on. I’ll help you.”

Aziraphale sighs. “All right. You best go up first. Otherwise I’ll fall on you.”

Crowley snorts a laugh. “What harm would it do? I’m invulnerable and you’re light as a feather, these days.”

Crowley, as expected, shimmies up the branches (all perfectly placed for easy reaching, even for an uncoordinated boy like Wensleydale) with ease. Aziraphale takes his time behind him. As he reaches the hole in the floor, Crowley’s hands pop out and grip him by the wrists, pulling him the rest of the way in. 

Aziraphale sits on the slat wood floor and looks about. “It’s enormous,” he scolds. “It’s bigger on the inside.”

Crowley has the decency to blush. “I told you. I miss Doctor Who.”

Aziraphale bites down on a smile. A real, wide one. 

Crowley grins back to see even the hint of it. “Go on. Look, there’s the stairs to the upper level.”

Aziraphale has to crawl on his hands and knees over to the short staircase (the treehouse _is_ large, but it’s still built for kids and the ceiling is low). He makes a small, wondering sound. “Oh, my dear.”

The second floor has a sturdy, open patio along one wall. And as he ducks out onto it, he can see the supposed ash tree is full to bursting with a crop of entirely unseasonal and perfect-looking apples.

“Figured he could stop filching them from that old coot down the road.” Crowley is quick to move into position beside Aziraphale. They look out through the leaves together.

“You know he’ll do it anyway.”

“They do taste better when they’re forbidden, I’ve heard.”

Aziraphale plucks an apple from a near branch. He pushes it into Crowley’s hands. “Only one way to find out if that’s true.”

Crowley’s expression is hard to read.

“Angel,” he says, softly. “Are you tempting me?”

Aziraphale’s small smile grows into a broad grin. Crowley, again, grins reflexively back. 

“What would you do, dear, with the knowledge of good and evil?”

Crowley snorts at the question. “Don’t I have that already?”

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale replies, truthfully. “I’ve always wondered if there wasn’t more to understand. If, in a way, we’re as Adam and Eve were. Naked, unaware that we should be clothed. It seems likely, doesn’t it, that there would be a next step?”

Crowley’s eyes narrow. Even behind the shades, Aziraphale can see it. “Angel. What you’re talking about--that ‘next step’--it’s not allowed. It’s taking yourself to the level of God.”

Aziraphale considers this. “Oh. Well, good thing I only ever wondered about it and didn’t actually try, then, I suppose?”

Crowley takes off his shades, holding them with the hand that is not currently clutching the pilfered apple. His expression is serious. “Aziraphale, you need to be careful, all right? You’re in territory even a demon wouldn’t tread in. Even Satan wouldn’t dare.”

Aziraphale lifts a shoulder. “It’s only a thought, dear. But I’m sure you’re right.”

Crowley breathes out a small puff of air. “Keeping you out of trouble is a lot more difficult than I would have guessed. You’re too smart for your own good. Too bullheaded, besides. How come you never told me you’d been thinking about the advancement of angels?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Because it was theoretical, I suppose? Crowley, what on earth did you think I was doing with all of those books? I’ve learned things, over the centuries. Many things.”

Crowley hums. He opens his mouth, shuts it again, but then shrugs. “All right. I have to know: how theoretical is it, exactly? Is there some new Tree out there, just waiting for the likes of angel kind to find it?”

Aziraphale smiles slightly. “There’s a few guesses, yes. I’ve never gone to look.”

Crowley shakes his head. “The hubris.”

“It wouldn’t be so shocking, would it? If He had set a test for us just as he had for humankind?”

Crowley shudders. “I really don’t want to think about it. I already failed one of God’s biggest tests. Let’s not give me another, eh?”

Aziraphale frowns, feeling that same, off-kilter sensation with which he’s growing steadily familiar. There’s something about this conversation that is at odds with his past self, something that makes Aziraphale in the present feel out of step with the rest of the world. “You’re better off.”

Crowley jerks back as if Aziraphale has just tried to hit him. “ _Excuse_ me?”

Aziraphale steps back, holding up his hands, brows drawn tight. “That was a bad thing to say,” he guesses.

“Too right,” Crowley mutters, darkly. He sets the apple down on the railing of the patio. “Enough fresh air, I think. Let’s go inside. I don’t want the kids to catch us out in the open.”

Aziraphale swallows, letting his nervousness go away. He shakes his head. “They’re children, Crowley, not a pride of hungry lions.”

“Please. If anyone is the predator species around here, it’s me. I just don’t want them to get their sticky little fingers all over my cool.”

\--

Crowley is good with the Them, despite his bluster. As predicted, the group stops by at least once a day, sometimes more on the weekends. They keep to their designated gate and never purposefully bother the cottage itself, but Aziraphale goes out to the tree, from time to time, to offer a brief hullo and some miracled snacks. 

Crowley usually tags alone on these sojurns, mostly spending the short encounters snarking at Pepper and enabling Brian. 

Aziraphale keeps a steady eye on Wensleydale (a good, smart chap, but he can’t be trusted not to fall right out of the tree, given half a chance).

Neither of them worry at all about Adam. Even as a normal human child, he radiates an aura of self-assurance that makes him somehow impervious to all harm.

\--

It’s a shock, then, one overcast afternoon, when a small fist knocks at their back door.

“Got it,” Crowley says, pulling himself away from the small bonsai tree on the kitchen table. “S’the nervous one. Shall I let him in?”

“Crowley, please. You know his name very well and, moreover, you know better than to ask. Do whatever you want.”

He does.

Wensleydale pushes his thick glasses up his nose with a hand. His other hand is clutched around a small shoebox. It has holes in it. “Ah, hello. Good afternoon. Thank you for seeing me.”

Crowley shoots a look at Aziraphale over his shoulder.

Aziraphale just stares placidly back at him. 

Crowley sighs. “What can I do for you, kid?” he asks.

Wensleydale bites his lip. Then, he lifts up the shoebox. “I need help.”

Crowley tilts his head back on his neck as if begging for strength, though certainly he expects to find marginal help from above him at best. “Come in.”

Aziraphale shepherds the boy and his box gently to the kitchen table. “Where are you friends?”

“Oh, Adam told me to come here. We were playing by the water. Adam didn’t figure we _all_ needed to come by. He sent me ‘cos it’s my shoebox.”

Aziraphale smiles softly. The shoebox is for a small pair of loafers. With fringe. “Of course. What’s in it, dear boy?”

Wesleydale nods, clearly expecting that question. He tugs off the lid on top. 

“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale says, faintly. “Crowley! I do believe this is more your area. I’ll go mi--make--bring--some biscuits and milk for us all, shall I?”

Crowley, likely interested despite himself, comes over. He whistles low. “She’s a beauty,” he compliments. “Where’d you find her?”

“In the water. She’d got all wedged between two branches. I tried to look her up in my field book, but I couldn’t figure it out--she’s not a water snake, is she?”

“No indeed,” Crowley agrees. “She’s a European Viper. An adder. You lot are lucky as all hell she didn’t bite any of you. She didn’t, did she?”

Wesleydale goes extremely pale.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale warns. Then he flinches. Something--?

Crowley shoots him a worried look. 

Aziraphale waves him off. 

“She didn’t,” Wesleydale says, weakly.

Crowley pats his shoulder. “Their bites aren’t fatal. Not a fun time, but you’d have lived. I wouldn’t worry overly much about it, anyway. She’s not very interested in biting anyone at the moment. It’s a good job you got her out of those branches when you did. She’s half-starved.”

“You can tell?”

Crowley shrugs. “I’m good with snakes.” As if to prove the point, he reaches out a hand to the rather large snake. She hesitates but then slowly winds up his arm.

“Wicked,” Wensleydale breathes, perhaps the most properly childish thing he’s ever said.

Crowley smirks. “Oh, without a doubt.”

“Here you are,” Aziraphale offers, setting a plate of biscuits and a glass of cold milk before the boy. “Might as well have a snack before you go back to your friends. You can take the leftovers to them, too.”

Wensleydale beams at him. “Thanks! I can only have one, though. My mum gets cross if I don’t save room for a nutritious dinner.”

Aziraphale tilts his head at him thoughtfully. “I won’t tell her if you won’t.”

Crowley makes an amused sound, refusing to catch the angel’s eye.

\--

It’s a _large_ terrarium. 

Aziraphale presses his fingers to the glass. “It will hold, won’t it? I don’t want any of them getting bitten, even if it _isn’t_ likely to be fatal. They’ll stop coming by, if they get bitten.”

Crowley huffs. “Not likely. Become the hottest spot for pre-teens in town, more like.”

“Crowley, I’m serious.”

Crowley hides his smile in his cup of coffee. 

More and more since they’ve arrive in Tadfield, brief flashes of Aziraphale’s old self keep bleeding through--his fussiness, especially. “Safe as houses, Angel. Stop bothering her. She wants to nap.”

“As well she should, after how she swallowed that rabbit down. Poor thing.”

“Circle of life. Now, come sit.”

\--

“I want to see the snake.”

Aziraphale blinks blearily at the short, determine figure at their back door. He yawns and rubs his eyes.

He’d been napping on the couch. Crowley is in his new plant room, fussing with bonsai trees again, most likely. Aziraphale has mostly been sleeping, the past few days. He’s not felt his best, and sleeping, at least, makes the time go by. 

Pepper frowns at him. Then, something dawns on her. “Also, good morning.”

Aziraphale’s lips twitch into a faint smile. “Come in, Pepper. I’ll make you a hot cocoa, if you like. And don’t tap on the glass, please. It makes her quite distressed.”

Aziraphale lingers in the kitchen for as long as suspects it would take to make a cocoa without pulling it from thin air. When he pads into the living room, he finds Pepper with her hands carefully tucked behind her back and her nose pressed to the glass, her breath fogging it up in short bursts. Something warm and soft hits him in the chest, so hard and fleeting that it leaves him breathless. He stops stock still midstep, breathing through it, eyes wide.

“What’s her name?” Pepper demands, oblivious. 

Aziraphale comports himself. He stands up straight and hands her the steaming mug. “We haven’t thought to name her, yet. I suppose Crowley could always ask.”

Pepper shoots him a hard, skeptical look. “Your boyfriend can talk to snakes, can he?”

Aziraphale considers her for a moment. “Yes.” He hardly sees any reason to lie to her about it.

Pepper squints at him. “Hm. Well. You should have him ask. It’s rude, to just go around calling her ‘the snake’ all the time.”

“I will.”

“He’s really your boyfriend, then? You didn’t deny it.”

Aziraphale perches on the edge of the couch. “That’s not exactly what I’d call it. But near enough to suit you, I’d suppose.”

Pepper nods, sagely. “My mum had a girlfriend, after she left my dad. She was all right, but she didn’t like Tadfield at all. People here are too stodgy about lesbians and things. So she left. I miss her, but I suppose it’s all right. Mum says she doesn’t mind, being single. It just means she has more time to spend with me and her.” 

“I’m glad you and your mother have a good relationship.”

Pepper shrugs. “I guess. I don’t think about it much.”

Aziraphale peers past her into the glass. The snake is curled up in sleep, ignoring them utterly. 

“Do you like games?” Pepper asks, abruptly. “‘Cos sometimes me and the Them, we’ll play boardgames. And we want to bring some up to the treehouse. Which is all right and that except Brian’s too impatient to play more than a few minutes and Adam always wants to play boring strategy games--he’s _much_ better at playing pretend--and Wensleydale’s parents won’t let him play anything ‘ess it’s educational and, frankly, I’m sick to death of Trivial Pursuit.”

“What do you prefer to play?”

Pepper grins at him. “I’m real good at Go Fish and Old Maid.”

Aziraphale considers this for a moment. He nods. “I suppose we could manage that.”

\--

Once a week, Wensleydale comes by and checks up on the snake. (Crowley politely inquires as to her name and the result is beyond human comprehension, so they all just take to calling her Noodle because it seems to fit). 

On Saturday afternoons, Pepper comes by and plays cards with Aziraphale and, if he can be bullied into it, Crowley, too. 

Brian wanders in one evening and makes a few comments about his parents being out and wondering if, maybe, perhaps, he can join them for dinner…? And Crowley promptly orders the boy to stop by anytime he needs a place to go. From that point on, they see the boy quite a lot, especially in the evenings and at meal times. Brian has a large family. He sometimes is easily forgotten. Once, he even spends the night on the couch. (Crowley insists they should call his parents, but Aziraphale shakes his head. “He wouldn’t be here, if that was an option, Crowley.” “You’re supposed to be the sensible one!” Crowley accuses. Aziraphale meets him eye for eye. “I should think, as the one of us with any empathy, you’d be making better choices.” And there hadn’t been much to say, after that.)

It all comes to a head after a month or so, when Adam Young knocks on their back door just after breakfast.

“What did I tell you about how this would go?” Crowley moans. “In the cottage at all hours, at the door all the time, needing this, asking that--.”

Aziraphale just sips his tea. 

Adam, to his credit, doesn’t come in until Crowley, sighing, asks him to. 

“Have a seat, Adam,” Aziraphale offers. “Do you want breakfast?”

Adam critically eyes Aziraphale’s mostly full, picked at plate. “Do you?”

Crowley snorts a laugh. “What cheek,” he compliments.

Adam sits down in the vacant chair. “I’ve come to ask what gives.”

Aziraphale licks his tongue over his teeth idly, waving a hand for the boy to go on. 

“‘Cos it seems to be that you’ve been stealing my gang away without askin’, and that’s not fair.”

Aziraphale and Crowley exchange a brief look over the boy’s head. “I don’t understand, Adam.”

Adam fidgets, because he’s only a child, afterall. “Well.” Adam swallows heavily, lifting his eyes, determination in his gaze. “Everybody’s coming by here all the time and doing things and such. Only nobody ever asked me about it, did they?”

Crowley makes a sound of understanding. “You’re welcome anytime, Adam, just like the rest of them. Sorry you felt left out.”

Aziraphale smiles at his plate. Crowley is all bark and not a hint of bite at all, where the Them is concerned. And even his bark fails him, more often than not. 

“Is that right?” Adam demands of Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale lifts a shoulder. “I mostly do what Crowley feels is best. If he says so, then so do I.”

Adam beams. “Well, all right, then. Can I come back tonight? I want to see the snake.”

Aziraphale nods. “Her name is noodle. Any time you’d like, Adam. Just knock on the door, first, please.”

\--

“This is all well and good,” Crowley says one rare evening alone. “But we need to talk about it.”

“‘This’? ‘It’?”

“The kids. They’re wearing you out. Me, too, a bit, but not nearly as much. You’re not yourself. And being at the beck and call of a bunch of children day in and out is stretching you thin. I’ve seen you with them. I know how hard it is for you to know what to do and say.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad as that. You’re always nearby, if I need help puzzling something out.”

“It’s too much. You’re tired. Hell, I’d say you’re making yourself sick, if I thought that was possible to do.”

Aziraphale levels him a look. “Black Plague,” he says, mildly.

Crowley sniffs. “Yeah, well. I was making a _point_.”

“It’s not a proper strike if no one is paying attention to it, dear.”

“Look, stop trying to distract me. You need a break.”

“They’re helping me.”

Crowley raises a brow at him, incredulous. “Explain.”

Aziraphale fiddles with his sleeve. He’s patched it twice, already, and just keeps picking out new holes. “I didn’t want to mention it until I was sure. And I’m not, quite yet.”

“Don’t leave me in suspense, Angel.”

“It’s not often. But, from time to time, when I’m with them I...feel something different. Not so different. Something familiar, but different.”

“Something you’ve lost?”

“I don’t know. It’s never for very long. But it’s unmistakably present. It--it hurts, a bit. The way that it hurts to take a breath when you’ve been without air for too long. Good and right but...sore.”

Crowley scoots over so that they are sitting more closely on the couch. “I wish you’d mentioned this earlier. I thought we were being transparent. No lies of omission, on either side.”

“I didn’t know if it was real.”

Crowley sighs, rubbing his hand over his face. “Lack of self-trust,” he reminds himself, rather bitterly. “All right, then. What makes you think the kids are causing it?”

“They’re always there when it happens.”

“Because they are _always_ here,” Crowley says, dryly.

Aziraphale pats his knee. “The holidays end, soon. They’ll come by less, I should think, when school starts back up.”

“They’re going to want help with their studies.”

“Oh, dear, I hope not. I haven’t so much as looked at algebra since it was invented. And their history books are always so full of errors.”

Crowley grabs the hand on his knee, squeezing it softly. “You’re avoiding the question.”

“Was there a question?”

“An implied one. Are you feeling all right?”

Aziraphale lifts a shoulder. “I’m low on energy, these days. Hell was, well, hell, on my baseline needs, I suppose. I can’t quite get the knack of needing sleep and food and the like. The Them aren’t at fault. I promise, they help.”

Crowley hisses a slow breath in through his teeth. “All right, then. I’ll allow it. But the minute I think otherwise--.”

“I trust you to do what you think is best, dear.”

Crowley sighs. “Yeah. I know. That’s what worries me, sometimes.”

\--

“Uh-huh. Not today. Scram.”

The assembled Them stare up at Crowley in suspicion. They’re used to Mr. Crowley’s grumpiness, and they’re not entirely certain if his greeting is a genuine brush off or more of the same.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale calls from the living room couch. “Don’t be such a grouch. Just let them in.”

“Angel,” Crowley growls back over his shoulder, clearly agitated. 

Adam speaks up for the lot, as usual. “Is everything all right? Me and the gang just wanted to say hello and all.”

“Say hello tomorrow,” Crowley replies, sharply.

“Crowley. Let them in.” A pause. “I want you to.”

Crowley closes his eyes, pained. He can hardly refuse such a statement. Aziraphale rarely has desires or opinions on much of anything, anymore. The only thing he’s started to warm up to, lately, is the Them. 

“Fine,” the demon grouches. “Come in. But don’t be bothersome. And take your shoes off at the door.”

Pepper is the first to kick off her trainers. She dashes into the living room and makes a bee line straight to the terrarium. “‘Lo, Mr. Fell!” she throws over a shoulder, getting cozy with the glass. “I heard that snakes shed their skins, sometimes. Is Noodle’s skin going to fall off? You should call me over, if it is. I want to see it happen.”

Aziraphale pulls himself into a sitting position, peering over at her over the back of the couch. “I suppose she might. It’s Crowley who knows about snakes.”

Pepper turns to reply to him, but her words get stuck in her throat. She takes a short, sharp breath in and hisses it out through her teeth like a bothered cat. “You look sick,” she accuses. “Are you sick?”

Aziraphale smiles at her. (Pepper always feels strange, when Mr. Fell smiles. It’s like he doesn’t quite know what to do with his face, when it happens.) “I’m only a tad under the weather. I’m not contagious. You don’t have to worry.”

Pepper waves a hand. “I’m not worried. My mum makes sure I get all my shots and besides that she says that I got a good immune system ‘cos I was breastfed so long and suchlike.”

Aziraphale nods. “Yes, I suppose that would do it,” he agrees, faintly amused. 

“Oi, Pepper, don’t hog the snake ‘cos--” Brian stops short. “Mr. Fell, you look _bad._ Oi, Mr. Crowley, d’ja know your friend is sick?”

“He’s not his friend, he’s his boyfriend,” Pepper corrects, primly. 

Brian makes a baffled face. “What, like if he was his girlfriend?”

Pepper nods.

Brian shrugs. “Okay. But, like, Mr. Crowley, did you know your boyfriend is sick?”

Crowley nudges Brian aside and strides across the room to the couch. “I told you you look like hell,” he mutters to Aziraphale. He nudges Aziraphale over just enough to sit right next to him and then promptly pulls the angel against him, playing pillow. “He’s fine, kids, just an idiot.”

“Rude,” Aziraphale mumbles, eyes already half-closed.

“My mum always gives me clear soda when I’m sick,” Adam offers. He sits down on the floor between the coffee table and the small TV, looking at Crowley and Aziraphale with a thoughtful expression. “Do you want some clear soda, Mr. Fell? ‘Cos I could go get some. They keep it down at the grocery, and Mr. Jubar down there probably knows the kind that’s best to get for being sick, I think.”

“Hey, look, one of them might leave,” Crowley whispers.

Aziraphale pinches his arm sharply. “Stop it.” To Adam, he says, “That’s very nice of you to offer, dear, but I’m afraid I can’t drink much of anything, right now.”

“When I’m sick, my mom makes chicken and stars soup,” Brian says. 

“My mom lets me eat ice cream, if I want it. Or dry toast. The ice cream is better,” Pepper says.

“When I’m sick, I just sleep a lot. Do you need to sleep a lot, Mr. Fell?” Wensleydale asks.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Aziraphale warns Crowley in a hiss before the demon can respond to that.

“Those are all very good ideas,” Aziraphale praises them, “Thank you. But I think I just need to lie here for a bit. Did you children want to do something in particular, today? It’s rare we see you all at once in the cottage.”

The Them all collectively look to Adam.

Adam hesitates. “Well, doesn’t seem as important, at the moment. We could talk about it later.”

The Them all make whining noises of disappointment.

“He’s sick,” Adam says to them, defensively. “Not fair to ask favors when somebody feels bad.”

Aziraphale jerks sharply in Crowley’s arms, suddenly. Crowley’s hold tights on him. “What--?”

“It’s fine,” Aziraphale says back, weakly. “Just… a feeling. Can you help me sit up properly?”

Crowley’s expression is tight with concern, but he does as asked. He keeps his gaze intent on Aziraphale, just in case. 

“Go on then. All of you come where Adam is so I can see you properly, please.”

The Them quickly scramble into place. Soon, all four of them perch on the floor, looking upon Aziraphale with wide, innocent eyes.

Aziraphale huffs a soft laugh. Crowley stares at him. Aziraphale’s laughter is a rare and precious thing, these days. “All right,” the angel says. “I’m listening. What do you need?”

“We don’t need it, exactly,” Adam hedges. He looks to the other Them and then back to the grown ups on the couch. “But we’d like it, if possible.”

“It’s about the tree house,” Pepper breaks in. Adam is smart and has lots of good ideas, but sometimes he’s too timid. “We want a slide in it. Out of it, you know. To get down once we’re up it.”

Aziraphale nods. “Yes. I think we could manage that quite easily.” He looks over at Crowley. “By tomorrow evening, I think?”

“We wanna help to make it, though” Adam says.

“I want it to do a loop-de-loop,” Brian adds.

“And it should be safety tested,” Wensleydale adds to that, looking alarmed.

“Give them an inch, Angel...” Crowley mutters.

Aziraphale shushes him. “All right. Come by Saturday morning. We’ll make a day of it.” “Good,” Pepper says, “Can we take Noodle out of her box, again?”

“Thanks, she means,” Adam says, shooting Pepper a dirty look. 

Pepper shrugs. “That, too. Can we, though?”

Crowley works his mouth. Aziraphale isn’t sure if he’s smothering a smirk or not. Despite what he might say, Crowley appreciates Pepper and her love for their pet snake. “All right, but, remember, only if I’m holding on to her. Budge up, Angel. One of you lot, you come here and sit.”

“That’s not--,” Aziraphale argues, but Crowley has the look he often gets in the midst of an especially naughty prank, and Azirphale can’t bring himself to dissuade him. “Oh, all right, then.”

“I can hold ‘em up, Mr. C. I’m real strong,” Brian says. 

“Good. Mind his right shoulder, then. It’s an old war wound, gives him trouble.”

Brian scrambles into the vacant spot. Aziraphale leans against the boy enough to make him feel like he’s contributing but not enough to squash him. “Gee-all, do you really got a _war_ wound? You don’t look like the soldiering type, though. Can I _see_ it?”

Crowley smirks to himself, pulling a sleepy Noodle from her home. “Sit down, Pepper. You know the rule. Nobody pets Noodle unless you’re sitting still. And don’t come at her from her blind spot.”

Aziraphale answers Brian as best he can without getting too deeply into the subject matter (“it was more of a battle, really” “no, with a sword” “well, it’s an animal bite, in point of fact” “you can’t see it, right now; maybe another time”).

Adam grins, watching Brian and Aziraphale like a tennis match, his eyes going back and forth. Wesleydale sits on the arm of the couch and breaks into their talk, abruptly changing the subject with a question regarding the safety standards of commercial grade playground equipment. 

The cottage is full of chatter and warmth and Aziraphale closes his eyes in the whirl of it and basks in the sensation of something warm growing out from his chest, digging sharp, hungry roots into his very soul. 

\--

“It’s Saturday,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale makes a soft, agreeing noise. 

“I can tell them to come back later.”

Aziraphale swallows thickly a few times. “No,” he mumbles, burrowing his face deeper under the blankets. Their bedroom is cold, to him. Despite this, there’s a persistent sheen of sweat on his skin, and the room feels close and muggy with the scent of fever. 

“You’re in no shape to--.”

“S’all right,” Aziraphale says, or thinks he does. 

“Angel,” Crowley murmurs, soft. He places his palm flat over Aziraphale’s back, rubbing in small circles. “They’re kids. They can wait.”

“They’re mortals,” Aziraphale replies, in a low rasp. “They can’t.”

Crowley hesitates. Then, gently, he nudges his arm underneath Aziraphale’s, tugging him up. “Then you’d better get presentable, because I can’t imagine they’ll burst in here much after sunrise, if that, spoiled as they are.”

\--

“You look the part,” Aziraphale compliments from his chair.

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Good. Maybe it’ll distract the little blighters from all the cheating I’ll need to do to make this work. You know this is ridiculous, don’t you? We should have just snapped it up and told them to deal with it. You’re too soft on them.”

Aziraphale smiles. “You don’t want to disappoint them, either.”

Crowley scoffs and refuses to answer that. He fiddles with the toolbelt around his hips. In well-worn jeans and a paint-splattered shirt, he does truly look handy. The laden belt helps, especially with the hammer. It has a yellow handle that--though the children will hardly know it--matches his eyes.

“It’s fun to them, Crowley. They want to play.”

“Play,” Crowley grumbles. “Play with sharp nails and bits of wood, kids, what can go wrong?”

“You won’t let anything happen to them.”

“Hmph. Says you.”

Aziraphale starts to respond but curls forward instead, a fist pressed against his chest as he breathes through another of his strange attacks. They’ve been happening steadily all week, as far as Crowley can tell. Aziraphale insists it’s all right, _good_ , even, but Crowley can’t see how anything that makes the angel go all pale and shaky like that is any good at all.

“I’m telling them to buzz off.”

Aziraphale waves a hand at him. “Don’t,” he hisses out, weakly. “Crowley.”

“ _Fine_. But you know if that happens in front of the kids, you’ll scar them. Psychologically. For life.”

Aziraphale shoots him a dark look. 

Crowley, in a fit of pique, sticks out his tongue. It flickers.

\--

The kids do, indeed, arrive hardly before the sun is even properly up over the horizon. They bring their bikes, a picnic hamper, and assorted bits of borrowed second-hand tools with them. Pepper has her own metal toolbox full of nails and screws and a single screwdriver. Brian has a hammer and, alarmingly, a hand saw. Wensleydale comes with the picnic hamper and a safety pamphlet. Adam hands Crowley a tape. “You got a tape deck, right? S’a real proper band called Queen. They’re great.”

If Crowley wasn’t completely, utterly sure that Adam Young is no more than a simple, human boy with absolutely no omniscient tendencies whatsoever, that might have given him cause to doubt. 

“Yeah,” he drawls, slowly. “I’ll get on that.”

“Hi, Mr. Fell!” Wensleydale greets, racing over to where Aziraphale sits (more, slumps) in a lawn chair under the shade of a miracled patio umbrella. “I’ve got the pamphlet! I annotated it!”

Pepper and Brian gather up all the things they’ve brought and start to circle the treehouse, arguing animatedly about where the slide should go and how many loop-de-loops it ought to have. (Pepper says two, Brian says six). 

Adam, hamper in his grasp, comes over to Crowley just as the demon gets the tape player going. “He looks real rough, Mr. C. He’s got a doctor or something, right?”

“Or something,” Crowley agrees, faintly. He follows Adam’s line of sight. Aziraphale has his head bent, talking to Wesleydale. Even in the flattering light of a sunny day’s morning, he looks gray and gaunt, eyes glassy with fever and fingers trembling in his lap. He idly rubs his chest from time to time, gaze flickering over to Pepper and Brian with a soft smile. 

“There’s a pie in this basket,” Adam says, drawing his attention away again. “Mum said I could bring it. S’big enough for everybody, I reckon, especially ‘cos Mr. Fell won’t eat his share.”

Crowley winces. “You’re likely right. Brian can have it.”

“It’s real nice, what you do for the rest of ‘em and me. I wanted to tell you so, ‘cos I don’t think you like it, much, having us around. But we do appreciate it, really.”

Crowley gently tugs the hamper from Adam’s hand. “You’re not what I thought we’d find, here. But he likes having you around, and I’m not in a place where I can argue with him, anymore. So, it’s all right by me.” He pauses. “Besides. I’ve dealt with far worse than the likes of you lot.” 

Adam grins, taking that as the highest compliment. Which, honestly, it is.

“Go and intervene, then, before Pepper throws a punch. I’ll put this in the kitchen and be right out. And, mind you, don’t let Azi--Mr. Fell get out of that chair, all right?”

Adam tosses him a messy salute and goes running off toward Pepper and Brian who are, indeed, looking near to blows (and that can’t be allowed, because Pepper is never afraid to bite).

\--

It’s takes a miracle--several, actually--to get the slide up and functional before the end of the day. They bicker about design and placement for hours until Crowley breaks in, informing Them sharply that there will be no loop-de-loops if they know what’s good for them--but he’ll make it so the slide has a spiral shape, if they’ll all just shut their gobs and go inside and wash up for lunch, already.

They sit outside and eat cold ham and cheese sandwiches and Adam’s mother’s pie. The kids chug chilled soda from perspiring bottles and Crowley drinks a beer which does not _dare_ to sweat. 

Aziraphale chatters gamely while they eat, picking his own sandwich into its separate components and, sometimes, nibbling on a crust of the bread. 

“What I don’t understand about school, though, is why is it I can’t just _decide_ what to learn about?” Adam demands of the assembled party. He pulls up tufts of grass from between his feet, expression stormy. “I mean to say, if I was to get to pick, I’d want to learn about really interestin’ things. How stars explode and how vikings made ships and how to be a really wicked pirate and that. But instead it’s all geometry and dead Kings what killed their wives. Where’s the fun in that?” Aziraphale smiles, showing actual teeth, for once. “It’s the mark of a true learner, Adam, who seeks the knowledge he wishes most to know on his own. You don’t have to only learn what they teach you in school, you know. You could get books on whatever topics you like to read at home.”

“Read at home!” Brian wails, as if Aziraphale has just suggested they murder Dog. “Mr. Fell, that’s _horrible.”_

Aziraphale laughs. “Yes. I suppose it might be, in a certain context.”

Crowley smiles at the sound of Aziraphale’s laughter, low and free, even if it is tempered by the rasp in his throat. 

“I quite like independent study,” Wensleydale says, earnestly. “All last month I read up on the moths and butterflies of North America. I’d like to start a collection.”

“Oh, don’t,” Pepper says, disgustedly, “They kill the poor things and stick them with pins!”

“They don’t always,” Wensleydale argues. “I could order them living and keep a terrarium, just like Noodles’.”

“Why not just get yourself a Noodle?” Brian asks, quizzically, “Seems to me a snake is a lot more interesting than a bunch of bugs.”

“Butterflies--,” Wensleydale starts in, heatedly. 

“Az, you all right?” 

The sharp concern of Crowley’s voice causes all the children to go silent and very still. 

Aziraphale curls up in his seat, hands pressed flat against his chest, breathing shallow and quick. He doesn’t seem to hear Crowley’s question and, when the demon touches his shoulder, doesn’t react at all.

Adam gets to his feet. “I can call the ambulance,” he says.

“There’s no phone in the house,” Crowley replies. “It’s all right. Just sit down. Finish your lunch.”

“Finish our lunch?” Pepper echoes, incredulously.

“I’m the fastest on my bike,” Brian says, his usual placid calm absent. “I could go down the hill and right to Doc Ermines’s and--.”

“Don’t,” Crowley orders. “Everybody just shut up and sit down and stay where you are. Angel, you with me?”

Adam watches the two grown ups, frowning to himself. “He’s cryin’,” Adam points out, to Crowley. He looks at the Them. “Take your food and go in the kitchen and finish it. Let’s leave ‘em be for a bit.”

“But--” Pepper starts to argue. A look from Adam leaves her quiet. She nods. 

The kids pick up their paper plates and dodge single file into the cottage, letting the door shut behind them. 

Crowley gets to knees at Aziraphale’s feet, nudging his hands between Aziraphale’s fingers and where they press to his chest. He grasps them, squeezing tight. Adam is right--the angel is weeping. “Hey,” Crowley says, lowly. He ducks his head, trying to get a good look at Aziraphale’s face. “Hey, easy. What’s happening?”

Aziraphale suddenly lunges forward, throwing himself at Crowley in a tight hug. He buries his wet face against Crowley’s neck and sobs openly, loudly, like a child cries--without censure or embarrassment, open mouthed and raw.

“I _killed_ them,” Aziraphale moans, lowly. “They started it, but toward the end they just wanted to get _away_ and I didn’t _stop_ , I didn’t even _try_.”

Crowley, baffled, pats his back. “It’s fine. Angel, it’s fine. You had to do it. You had to survive. You had to get through the door to the next level. You had to-to end it all, to do that.”

“There’s so much of it,” Aziraphale whispers. “So much death and blood and _pain_ , Crowley, why must they _hurt_ so?”

Crowley feels they are not, perhaps, talking about demons, any longer. 

Aziraphale continues, “Someday, they’ll grow up, and it’ll go away. They’ll see the world and feel that terrible hurt deep within it and all of this--the butterflies and days in the sun and slides with loop-de-loops--will just _stop_.”

Crowley closes his eyes, wraps his arms around Aziraphale, holds tight. “Innocence,” Crowley mumbles, relieved and also full of sorrow, mirroring Aziraphale’s own current pain. “You got your innocence back.”

Aziraphale can only sniffle and sob in reply. 

“They never lose it, Angel,” Crowley promises. “It gets tempered, maybe. Knocks off some of the gloss. But it never stops. You know it won’t. They’ll still doodle funny cartoons in the margins of their notes and coo at baby animals and try to swing up and over the pole. They might do it all on the sly, be a bit embarrassed, but it’s _there_. It’s there.”

Aziraphale trembles in his arms. “I’ve seen such terrible things,” he whispers. “I’d forgotten.”

“Hard to understand how terrible, without the context,” Crowley agrees, faintly. “It’s all right. You’re just overwhelmed. It’ll get easier, by and by.”

He pulls away, starts to stand.

“Where are you going?” Aziraphale asks, no longer crying but still tear-stained, eyes wide. 

“M’gonna make sure the kids get home all right.”

“No! No, Crowley, don’t. Don’t let me ruin it, please.”

Crowley stares at him, accessing. “All right. But if you have another moment like that, that’s it. I told you, Angel. Scarred. For. Life.”

Aziraphale laughs at him, a surprised little giggle. “Don’t be cynical. Just...let’s make this a good day, Crowley. Please.”

“Protecting the innocence,” Crowley mutters. “Yeah, all right.”

\--

It’s the perfect slide, in the end. 

It has no loop-de-loops, but it sits in a spiral shape and has three whole levels from the second story patio all the way to ground. 

It’s made of wood in the frame and flat metal bits everywhere else. The wood curves over, making the slide inclosed. Crowley’s added what he sarcastically calls “breathing holes” all the way through, so the kids can peek out as they go sliding by (“and so they can breathe if they get stuck in it,” Crowley adds, smirking). It won’t be too hot to touch in the summer, and in the winter it’ll keep off the damp. 

Adam runs a hand over the side of it like an estate keeper appraising the flank of a fine horse. “It’s good,” he declares.

“Yeah, all right, but who gets to test it?” Pepper demands.

The eyes of the Them all turn on Adam. Adam looks at Wensleydale. “Safety inspection?”

Wensleydale beams at him. He nods, a quick, affirmative gesture. “On it!” 

They watch with bated breath as he eyes it up and down and sticks his head into both ends, running his fingers along all the rivets, eyes squinting speculatively behind his glasses. 

“Grade A work,” he says, and goes so far as to hand Aziraphale a (homemade) slip. 

Aziraphale smiles. It goes all the way up to his eyes, making them crinkle. Crowley’s breath escapes him utterly at the sight. He hadn’t realized he’d missed it so much. 

“Good,” says Adam. “Mr. Fell. You wanna go?”

The Them look at Aziraphale with wide, solemn eyes. None of them protest, even though they’re all well aware of how hungry every kid among them is for a turn. 

Crowley glances at the angel. “Not sure he’s up to that.”

Aziraphale purses his lips, staring at the treehouse and its new, shiny slide speculatively. “With a bit of help…?” he asks Crowley, uncertainly. 

Crowley closes his eyes at the lack of self-trust, at that tremulous look. “Yeah, then. All right. Kids, back out of the way, eh? I don’t want him to fall on you if I drop him.”

Aziraphale laughs. The Them look horrified.

“He won’t,” Aziraphale promises them, his eyes warm on his little ducklings. “I promise. Crowley, tell them you won’t.”

Crowley makes a face. “I won’t drop him,” Crowley says, deadpan. “On any of you,” he adds, after a beat.

Crowley pulls Aziraphale up onto his arm in a human-crutch carry. He could pick the angel up outright, but he doesn’t think the angel would appreciate it, much. Slowly, step by step, they make it to the tree house. 

“Should have installed a bigger basket,” Crowley mutters in Aziraphale’s ear.

Aziraphale laughs so hard he nearly falls out of Crowley’s bracing hold. “Oh, my dear. Honestly.”

Crowley grins at him, wide and fond. “You’re happy. It’s nice.”

“It’s...a start,” Aziraphale admits, softly. He looks up. “How on earth do you intend to get me up this tree, exactly?”

“I wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t made me promise in front of the children. Look at them, Aziraphale. You’ve set them up for disappointment.”

Aziraphale looks at the Them and then Crowley, thoughtfully. “I bet my primaries have grown back.”

Crowley’s eyes go so wide that Aziraphale has no trouble at all seeing his expression through the shades. “You’re serious.”

“It’s such a _small_ thing, really, isn’t it?”

“You’ll make their brains melt.”

“Not literally, I should think.”

“Angel….”

“They gave me something, Crowley. Something precious and wondrous. Something I will now cherish for the rest of my life.”

Crowley groans. “Reciprocity. Save me from the equal-mindedness of stubborn angels. Fine, fine. Why the hell not. Guess we won’t be wanting to stick around in Tadfield much longer, anyway, right? Go out on a bang. Sure, great. _Lovely_.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, eyes wide. “Please?”

Crowley sighs. He makes sure Aziraphale is steady on his feet and then eases back, stepping wide out of the way. He looks over at the Them. “I know I already told you to move back, but you’re going to want to move back about another, eh, six feet.”

“Maybe ten to be safe, dears. It’s been a while. My aim might be off.”

The kids look at each other in confusion, shrug almost as one, and proceed to walk backwards several steps. Wensleydale even goes so far as to count them out exactly.

Aziraphale takes a deep, calming breath and releases that tiny, bundled up part of himself that sits between his shoulder blades, usually ignored. 

His wings--white and huge and more than a bit unkempt--fill the sky. Pepper lets out a low shout. Brian breathes a smooth “ _wicked!”_. Wensleydale says “Mr. Fell?” in a small voice. And Adam Young, former Prince of Darkness and holder of many grim titles, feels something dormant and lost flare up in his insides, comforting and _his_. He turns his head slightly to look at Crowley. “Oh. Hello, you.”

Crowley, surprised, offers him a nod. “Hey.”

Aziraphale’s flight is brief but glorious. He shoots off into the sky, spirals once in the air, and then lands delicately on the open patio of the tree house. He grins down at the kids, enjoying their wide eyes and Adam’s knowing smile. “Let’s test it out, then, shall we?” He hesitates, folding the wings in. “Probably won’t fit, otherwise.”

The angel situates himself at the top of the slide, shouts a gleeful count of three, and goes barrelling down it. They can see him as a blur of motion through the breathing holes, making his way through three loops. He shoots out the bottom and lands on the ground, laughing in high, excited giggles. “Yes. Well. Perhaps you should put a cushion at the bottom bit.”

The Them whoop and cheer, racing toward the tree to take their turns. Crowley pulls Aziraphale to his feet and calmly helps the angel dust the dirt off his trousers. 

“Good, then?”

Aziraphale beams at him. He’s thin and gray and far too thin, but a light that had been missing is back in his eyes, unmistakable. “Good,” he says, definitively. “Very good indeed.”


	3. Act II: Spread Your Wings - A High Place (& All the Kingdoms of the World)

Leaving Tadfield is a sad affair. 

“We wouldn’t have to,” Crowley reminds Aziraphale for the third or fourth time that morning alone. He’s got Noodle wrapped possessively about his neck, drifting down his arm. She’s been clingy, since he broke the news to her. 

Aziraphale hums distantly, eyes on the windows leading out to the backyard, watching Them in the boughs of the ash-apple tree. They brought a pirate flag and tied it up in the rafters of the treehouse, letting it flow in the breeze. “There’s more out there,” the angel says. “I don’t think innocence is enough to be going on with long term. ...Is it?”

Crowley sighs. “I don’t know, Angel.”

“No. Nor do I.”

And isn’t that just the problem?

Leaving Tadfield is difficult, but wrapping up their loose ends proves shockingly simple, once they get the ball rolling. 

“It won’t do, will it, to just leave it sitting?” Aziraphale prompts, uncertainly. “They need access to the yard, and someone has to look after Noodle, besides.”

Crowley prods one of his bonsai trees with a finger and mutters something cross at it. He looks over to the Angel sitting on the couch and shrugs. “No, I suppose not. What do you have in mind?”

Tadfield is a cozy sort of place, but the Them are hardly its only children. Greasy Johnson and his gang alone number a good half-dozen, and Adam’s class in school has nearly thirty students. 

They consult Adam and the rest, first.

Adam and Pepper trade a look. Brian and Wesleydale keep their eyes on the grown ups, thoughtful and quiet.

“I suspect it could be all right,” Adam admits, slowly. “‘Long as everybody shares properly and that.”

“They will,” Pepper replies, darkly, “Or I’ll show them.”

“No biting,” Wensleydale reminds her, quicky. “That’s in the rules.”

“The rules?” Aziraphale asks, smiling the same soft, obliging smile he wears nearly constantly around the children, now. 

“Well, a proper rec center has rules, doesn’t it? No running ‘round the pool and those things.”

“We haven’t got a pool.”

“Could we get a pool, Mr. C?”

Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose, not even caring that doing so dislodges the lenses over his closed eyes. “Angel, inches and miles, honestly.”

“That will be up to you and the new coordinator, I should think, Brian,” Aziraphale says, warmly.

Pepper puffs out her chest, proud. “My mum’ll get us a pool if we ask her, Brian. At least a kiddie one.”

“I’m sure Ms. Peterson will certainly consider it,” Aziraphale agrees. “Remind her, Pepper, that if she finds herself in needs of the funds, all she needs to do is call the number we left, all right?” (Aziraphale had been relieved, in a way, to discover that Pepper’s mother’s surname was not, in fact, ‘Moonchild,’ but he did feel that ‘Pepper Peterson’ was a trouble of its own.)

The number in question goes to Crowley’s mobile. A boxy, squalling thing that the demon only tends to flash around for show. At least now it has an actual purpose. 

Transforming the cottage and its property into a small recreational center for the village’s children had been Aziraphale’s idea, but Crowley’s demonic sense of management (the Devil is in the details, after all) makes it truly viable. 

With Pepper’s mother hired on as the coordinator and a well-vetted group of older kids--gawky, boisterous teens whom even Adam had declared ‘cool’--conscripted to conduct the day-to-day supervision, the planned schedule for the space comes about with relative ease. 

(“And Noodle?” Pepper had asked the moment the idea had first been made clear to her.

“Comes with the building,” Crowley assured her. “Putting you and one of the older kids on Noodle duty. Every day, you better check in. I’ll know if you won’t.” He won’t, actually, but the threat is hardly necessary, regardless. Pepper loves Noodle.)

“Your mother has free rein to expand the property, if she likes. We’ve bought the lot over, in case.”

 

It’s amazing, really, how much a few old, dusty books can go for in the modern market. Crowley had argued and bullied, insistent that Aziraphale would be unhappy about it later on, but the angel had ignored him. They’re just things, and he doesn’t care about them.

Their last day, the angel and demon stand in the grass and bid Them goodbye one by one. 

“Where are you going?” Adam asks of them, curiously. “Have you decided?”

Aziraphale looks to Crowley, also curious of the answer. Crowley shrugs. “Oh, we’ll find our way, I expect. I’ve got some ideas.”

Brian frowns, thoughtfully. “You’ll visit, right? That’s what people do, don’t they, when they leave?” Brian’s never been outside of Tadfield. He’s never known anyone who left it, either--at least, no one _actually_ important to him. Granted, that list of people is quite small. 

“I’m sure we can manage that,” Aziraphale promises. He reaches out a hand to Brian and shakes the boy’s hand briskly. “Mind yourself, now. Don’t shirk on your studies.”

Brian mumbles something non-committal. Wensleydale pushes his heavy glasses up his nose. “Don’t worry,” he says to Aziraphale, brightly, “Brian and I are gonna work together, this year. I’m going to be a _tutor_.”

Crowley smirks at the obvious reverence and awe in the boy’s voice.

“And me an’ Adam are gonna learn how to draw blueprints,” Pepper breaks in, determinedly. “‘Cos we want to tear out the far wall of the cottage and put in a big kitchen an’ places to sit and the like.”

Adam shrugs under Crowley’s raised brows. “Sometimes kids got parents what’re at work real late. Figured we could set up some sort of chow line, like.”

“Except the teens’ll have to do most of it ‘cos none of us are allowed to turn on the stove,” Brian explains, rather wistfully.

“Says you,” Pepper argues. “I make my own eggs every morning. Scrambled and everything.”

Before the conversation can progress into an argument, likely a violent one, Aziraphale tugs at Crowley’s hand. “We should be going.”

Crowley nods. He looks the kids over with a keen eye. “Don’t be too good,” he advises. “But don’t get into more trouble than you can handle, either.”

And then they leave Tadfield behind.

\--

Aziraphale is vaguely surprised when Crowley stops the Bentley after barely more than twenty minutes, pulling her into the lot of what looks to be a large storage center. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve made up my mind,” Crowley says. “I know where I want to go, and the Bentley won’t get us there.”

“So you’re _parking_ her?” Aziraphale asks, skeptical. “Crowley, my dear, you haven’t let this thing out of your sight since you first acquired it.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“We could at least take her back to London.”

“The man here says he’ll do that. I’ve paid him well enough, and he’ll get the rest after he’s done it. Stop worrying about my car.”

“I’m not _worried_ ,” Aziraphale says, because he’s not. His reclaimed innocence is a step in the right direction, but it’s affected him enough only to ease something empty in his heart. His emotional range is still truncated, and more than often he’s simply out of his depth and faintly confused. Crowley leaving his precious car behind is _certainly_ confusing.

They vacate the vehicle. Crowley chats with ‘the man’ for a few minutes while Aziraphale perches against the Bentley, keeping his eyes on his feet.

“C’mon, Angel. We should walk off a ways.”

“We’re walking, from now on?”

“No.”

Aziraphale follows the demon. There’s not much else he can do.

\--

They walk down the road about a half mile until Crowley tugs the angel over by his sleeve to stand along the fence stretched ‘round a vast, grassy pasture. There’s cows, standing deeper in, and Aziraphale watches them, curious.

“We’re not here for the cows,” Crowley tells him, amused.

“Why are we, then?”

Crowley looks away, cluing Aziraphale in that the demon is feeling unsure of himself.

“You know that I’ll go along with what you feel is best, dear.”

Crowley sighs, rubbing a hand through his hair. “No pressure.”

Aziraphale just stares at him placidly. Crowley huffs a breath through the space where he had honestly expected some sort of reassurance. But, no, of course not. 

“Your wings are up to snuff, again. I figured maybe we could fly, for a while.”

Aziraphale considers this. “All right.”

“That’s it, huh? ‘All right’?”

Aziraphale smiles at him, wanly. “Tell me what the arguments are, if you’re so keen to have one.”

“I don’t want to argue. I just want you to be--I want you to have opinions. Thoughts. Concerns.”

Aziraphale looks down, picking idly at an already fraying patch on his shirt sleeve. Crowley’s hand grasps his fingers, tugging them back. “Sorry,” the demon says, though he sounds more resigned than apologetic. 

“Would it please you, to fly?” the angel asks, brushing the apology aside.

“Uh? I guess so? It’s been about as long for me as it has for you. Longer, actually, if we count your stunt with the treehouse.”

“But you’d enjoy it?”

“Yeah, I suspect. Can’t go as fast as the Bentley. But you also can’t beat the view.”

“So let’s fly,” the Angel says, lifting a shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Crowley breathes out. “Yeah, all right.”

Their wings make a soft, unpresuming rustling as they expand. Crowley’s feathers are sleek and as perfectly in place as his hair. Aziraphale’s need a good tending to, but that’s just angels for you. Always glancing just a step aside from the dreaded sin of pride.

Crowley snaps at the angel. “C’mere. I won’t hover around behind you, but let me see your wings. I want to make sure the primaries are good enough to make the trip.”

Aziraphale stretches out one wing and then the other, allowing the demon to bend them as needed to get a good view. “Satisfactory, dear?”

“They’ll serve,” Crowley agrees, with a smirk. “Ratty as they are.”

Aziraphale merely tilts his head at the demon in reply. 

Crowley gives his own wings a few hard flaps, disrupting the dust under their feet, causing the grasses of the pasture to blow. “Hm, like riding a bike, is it, do you think?”

“It wasn’t so bad, for me.”

“Good. All right, then. What’s the phrase? ‘Up, up, and away’.”

Aziraphale snags Crowley’s hand in his own the minute they’re both airborne and steady. 

“‘Fraid you’ll lose me?” Crowley teases.

“Afraid you’ll get clever and start doing barrel rolls,” Aziraphale replies, with a grin. “And then I’d have to chase after you.”

Innocence, blazing through like a spotlight in the dark. Crowley squeezes the angel’s fingers and lets go, immediately falling into a whooping free-fall and a loud “Tag, you’re it!”

The demon swoops up into the air with the opening of his wings, soaring high above a blanketing of fluffy clouds, causing their vaporous forms to explode into tiny wisps. Aziraphale follows after him, nearly managing to grab him by the heel before the demon banks sharply aside and dives out over the expanse of remaining clouds, skimming fingers through it as if through the surface of a still lake. Aziraphale shifts himself up, flying just over Crowley’s speeding form, the tips of the demon’s wings close enough touch. Crowley, unable to see the angel above him, calls out his name in confusion.

Aziraphale folds his wings back and falls with all the force that gravity provides onto Crowley’s back, looping his arms and legs around the demon’s torso and feet, laughing at the rough “urk!” the demon says in his shock. Crowley, quick on the uptake, turns all his weight to one side, rolling them in their freefall so that Aziraphale is between him and the ever-approaching ground. 

“You’re going to get us discorporated!” Crowley accuses, shouting over the loud rush of air in their ears. The demon snaps his wings out in the air, catching at it like a parachute, slowing their mad decent. Aziraphale just clings more tightly to Crowley’s body, still laughing as the demon frantically flaps his wings until they are properly airborne again. 

“Let go of me, you child. You’re too heavy!”

“I am not. You’re just out of shape.”

Crowley gives his wings a hard thrust, throwing them up high into the air, up over the clouds, again. “If you’re going to be lazy, at least shift up. You’re dead weight, like this.”

Aziraphale folds his wings in entirely until they disappear. He does as bidden and climbs up so that his arms loop around the demon’s neck and his legs fold around his hips. Crowley wraps his arms around the angel, taking on more of his bodyweight. “ _Much_ better,” the demon remarks as he pulls his wings down hard a few times, rocketing them up until all they can see below their feet is a thick, white expanse of clouds.

“Heaven had views like this,” Crowley remarks, staring down.

“It still does,” Aziraphale assures him. “At least, I should think.”

Crowley’s arms tighten and release in a quick hug. “Do you miss it?”

“I don’t think I can answer that question, right now.”

Crowley nods. 

“But I doubt it, my dear. Really, once you’ve seen the tops of a few clouds, you’ve seen them all.”

Crowley grins at him. “Is that a hint?”

“Well,” Aziraphale says, placidly, “you _could_ go higher.”

“What, up into the stratosphere?”

“It’s not as if we need to _breathe_.”

Crowley makes a face. “No, but I don’t fancy going too high. It gets cold, you know.”

“Poor snake. So cold blooded,” Aziraphale says, in obviously mock sympathy. 

“Angel, any minute now you’re going to try to ‘double-dog dare’ me, and I won’t stand for it.”

Aziraphale just grins at him. “Spoilsport.”

“They were a bad influence on you. I’ve decided. I’m sending letters to their mothers.”

Aziraphale relaxes his hold on Crowley and lets go entirely, furling out his own wings again and keeping pace with Crowley in the thin air. “‘The people were still sacrificing on the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days,’” Aziraphale recounts, gazing down at the expanse below. 

“Their high places weren’t nearly this high,” Crowley argues.

“Places of worship, elevated by the hands of humankind--ever so slightly closer to the place where God is.”

Crowley tilts his head up. “That’s not where it is and you know it.”

Aziraphale smiles softly. “No. But I can understand why they thought so, can’t you?”

And then the angel lurches forward, wings faltering as Aziraphale tucks himself up protectively over his chest. Crowley grabs him under the arms, keeping the angel aloft while also pulling his face back to avoid getting bashed by the angel’s feathers. “Aziraphale!”

It’s a familiar twinge. It had hit him before, a few times, in Tadfield. When Wensleydale had gone all pale at the mention of Noodle’s venom and Aziraphale at snapped at Crowley at the sight of the boy’s distress. When Brian had come to their door, uncertain of his welcome, asking if he might come in for dinner and apologizing about the lateness of the hour and Aziraphale had promptly let him in. When Pepper had said she loved her mother and Aziraphale had _felt_ that tender, precious affection radiating in her eyes.

“It’s all right,” Aziraphale manages as the stabbing, warm sensation ebbs. He pushes Crowley gently back and tosses his wings out properly again, keeping himself afloat. “It’s gone.”

“Let’s go down again,” Crowley says. And Aziraphale follows him.

\--

“I know this place,” Aziraphale remarks as they land, unseen, on the rocky ground. 

Crowley lands beside him and immediately starts to fidget from foot to foot. He has his hands in his trouser pockets and looks distinctly uneasy. “Yeah, figured you’d likely been once or twice.”

“It’s Mount Athos,” Aziraphale says, surprised. He looks over at the demon. “It is, quite literally, holy ground.”

Crowley shrugs. “Bit of a sting. I’m all right.”

“Why are we here?”

“Because it was nearby, mostly. But, also, you can’t argue it’s a spectacular view.”

They stand in the Simonopetra, one of the many monasteries of the Mount. The building sits on the very edge of a high, rocky cliff, the water churning against the stones far below and away.

“The last time I was here was before the fire,” Aziraphale remarks.

“Which one? Pretty sure there were two.”

“The most recent one, I expect. It looks different.”

“Mhm, time tends to do that. Fires, too.”

“Where is everyone?” Aziraphale asks, looking around.

“Big drop in numbers. Not as many men interested, these days, in being monks.”

Aziraphale nods. “It’s beautiful.”

Crowley shrugs. “It’s as good as place as any for a pit stop. I wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

“I am. It was just a flicker of something.”

“Can you still fly? Otherwise, we’re probably going to have to do a bit of hiking down.”

Aziraphale takes a last look around at the pale stone and the wood beams and the sharp, natural rock. “You’d never make it, in those shoes,” Aziraphale says, glancing pointedly at Crowley’s snake-skin shod feet. Crowley raises a brow and casts a similarly speculative eye as Aziraphale’s loafers.

“High places,” Crowley remarks, as he throws out his wings. 

“And all the kingdoms of the world,” Aziraphale replies, thoughtfully. “Would that really have been so tempting, do you think?”

“I certainly wouldn’t want them. Think of the _paperwork_. Not to mention all that mileage, going to and fro,” Crowley says as they take to the air in a rustle of feathers.

\--

Aziraphale accepts what is handed to him entirely out of instinct. Crowley smiles at him over the top of his shades. 

“Not what you expected, I take it?”

Aziraphale hums softly, non-committal. He peers down at the book Crowley has handed him. It’s a battered paperback, a copy of _The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler_. It is, based on the cover art and the blurb on the back, a children’s chapter book. Aziraphale opens the front cover and runs a thumb lightly over the many rows of date stamps and signatures on the back.

“My dear, I have learned that I can’t expect much of anything, where you’re concerned.”

“Oh, that’s a good one! You should check it out,” a voice says, startling the angel and demon both. 

The library page grins at them with more warmth than pure customer service requires. She’s a short, fat woman with light brown skin and smiling eyes. A lanyard--in blue--hangs around her neck, marking her as a page. The name on the placard is “Janette.” 

“Oh, I-I haven’t a card,” Aziraphale tells her, apologetically.

“Oh, that’s all right. I can get you one. Do you have proof of address?”

Crowley nudges just slightly between the exuberant woman and the angel. “We don’t live here,” he says.

Janette just nods. “Kind of thought not, considering the accents and all. Well, all right. Between you and me, nobody minds if you just sit down and read it. We’ve got lots of comfortable places to sit for an hour or two. Just don’t go putting it back yourself, please. We use the pulled ones to keep user stats--have to prove ourselves to the taxpayers, you know?”

Crowley shoots an amused glance at Aziraphale, who has taken to gripping the book tightly in self defense.

“That’s good advice,” Crowley continues to intercede. “Thanks.”

Janette beams at him and goes off on her way, pulling a full book cart along like a dog on a leash.

“Why are we here?” Aziraphale asks in a low whisper, once she’s out of earshot.

“You like Canada,” Crowley counters, with a smirk.

“It’s Inuvik,” Aziraphale counters. 

“That’s Canada.”

“It’s practically _arctic_. You hate the cold. I don’t understand it.”

Crowley grins at him, rocking back on his heels a bit. 

“What?” Aziraphale demands.

“You get especially prissy when you’re anxious,” Crowley reminds him. “Haven’t seen you get like this in a while. Do you think something else has come back while I wasn’t looking?”

Aziraphale sniffs at him. “Not that I am aware of. I think you’re just so exceedingly irritating that I can’t _help_ it.”

Crowley laughs too loudly. Curious eyes glance their way.

“Why are we here?” Aziraphale repeats.

“It’s a library,” Crowley says, innocently. “You like those.”

Aziraphale considers this. “I suppose I must? But even I know this is hardly a _library_. It’s a tiny tin building in the middle of nowhere.”

“Not grand enough for you? Suppose we could have gone to the British Library, but you’ve been. And the Library of Congress was on the table--I scrapped it ‘cos of the Americans. You’ve been to all the big ones and the important ones already, I’d imagine. I thought this might be a comfortable change of pace.”

“‘Greatest Hits’?”

“All the kingdoms of the world,” Crowley reminds. He gestures broadly at the shelves of books. “Where else can you find that, these days, all in one place, if not a library?”

Aziraphale smiles.

\--

They spend the rest of the day there. Aziraphale curls up on an overstuffed couch and opens the children’s book Crowley had handed him before. 

Crowley stalks through the stacks and around the various areas of the library. He circles around the two computers, especially. They’re brand new and--having come by when she saw him looking--Janette seems very proud of them. 

“The kids mostly use them to play Oregon Trail. But they work well for word processing, too. We’ve got all kinds of people coming in, lately, to use them. Had a nice young lady in yesterday who spent a few hours on it. She said she’s working on a romance novel and her typewriter recently broke, so she can here. Imagine that.”

“Wave of the future,” Crowley drawls.

Janette is apparently impervious to his cynicism. She just nods, still beaming. “So what are you and your friend doing way out here? You don’t seem like the hunting sort. Most of our tourists, that’s what they want--shoot at some moose and climb around some snow drifts they think are mountains.”

“We’re definitely not hunting. Not for moose, anyway.”

“They’re much larger than most outsiders expect,” Janette informs him, cheerfly. 

“They used to be even bigger,” Crowley confides, with a smirk.

Crowley has his eyes on Aziraphale, even as he talks to Janette. Crowley goes tense and Janette follows his line of sight. 

“Oh, that’s just Regina. She’s around here a lot. She helps us make our display boards. Going to art college, someday, she says. I’ve got a daughter about her age, Sandy. I’ll be lucky if that girl goes to any sort of college at all,” Janette sighs. 

Crowley starts to move forward, but Janette stops him. “They’re all right. Regina’s a nice girl.”

Crowley allows himself to be deterred. Aziraphale looks content enough, his finger marking his place in his book as he chats with Regina. When Regina gestures to the couch and Aziraphale moves over to let her sit on the opposite end, however, Crowley mutters a farewell to Janette and approaches them in a rapid strides.

Janette may see a normal, human girl. Crowley can see that, too, until he tilts his head just so--and then he can see beneath the skin--can see her hollow-socket eyes and her gleaming, gold-plated teeth, bare as her skull and fleshless hands.

\--

Santa Muerta looks up from where she perches on the far end of the couch. She tilts her head back at the demon to flash her ever-present teeth in a grin. “White knight,” she comments, dryly. “Well, no, I suppose not.”

Aziraphale relaxes as Crowley comes up from behind him to his side. The demon hovers there, uncertain what to do. “Angel?”

Santa Muerta, underneath the human guise, wears Regina’s outfit--a bright yellow blouse and a pair of pale denim overalls. They’re cuffed extravagantly at the bottoms, revealing a flash of pink socks with lace trim under her black buckle shoes. She crosses her boney legs over each other and rests her thin hands on her knees. 

“You don’t need to be alarmed,” the ex-saint promises. “I’ve only come to say hello.”

Her empty eyes turn to Aziraphale, accusatory. “You haven’t visited me, lately.”

“I’ve never _meant_ to visit you in the first place,” Aziraphale argues. “You just show up.”

Santa Muerta nods her skull, conceding the point. 

“You’ve said hello, then. You can go now,” Crowley says, pointedly.

She ignores him and tucks her bone fingers into the large pocket on the front of her overalls. From the pocket, she pulls something out and hands it to Aziraphale. Letting his book fall shut, Aziraphale cups his hands and takes what she gives him--all his cut-up primaries, bound together in a thin purple ribbon. 

“Thank you?” Aziraphale asks, baffled. “Why--?”

“It is not a gift or a return,” Santa Muerta interrupts. “I do not provide either. It is, instead, a payment, made up front.”

“Payment for what?” Crowley demands.

“A small trinket,” she says, speaking to Aziraphale only. “Something you are hardly missing. Something that, once returned to you, I would like passed along to me.”

“Forget it,” Crowley says, sharply. “Aziraphale--.”

“What do you want?” Aziraphale interrupts, also ignoring the demon.

Crowley makes a sound of total frustration, throwing up his hands. None of the patrons look up. They are still and silent, locked in time.

Santa Muerta reaches out to the angel. She touches her fingertips over his hair and he, unconsciously, leans into the touch. “You aren’t missing it,” she repeats, “You gave it away so freely, before. You can do that again.”

“What is it?” Aziraphale presses, stilling her fingers in his hair by loosely grabbing at the joint of her wrist.

She tilts her head down against his ear, whispering. 

“Your faith.”

\--

“What did I tell you? What did I say? You shouldn’t have ever made a deal with her in the first place. Dealing with _pagans_ \--.”

“She’s a denounced saint,” Aziraphale says, with rather a strong sense of deja vu.

They are standing in the small men’s bathroom of the Inuvik library, whispering in tight, urgent voices. For all they know, Santa Muerta lingers just outside the door. For all they know, she can hear them regardless of where she is. 

Crowley makes a sharp, angry noise. “She’s _not_. Go-S-- _Dammit_ , Angel, you’d think you of anybody would know better about doing _thorough research_ \--.”

“I did! Santa Muerta’s in several books, most of them published by the Catholic Church, rallying against the attention paid upon her by their congregations. She’s a death figure. Part of ‘folk Catholicism,’ very popular in Mexico. She’s especially lauded by criminals and other shady sorts unable to bring their petitions straight to god--sort of a backdoor saint.”

“She’s not _a_ death figure. She’s _the_ death figure. She has more than one name, Angel!”

Aziraphale frowns. He hadn’t found any evidence of that in his materials. If he had, he would have cross referenced his work, of course.

“Other names?” the Angel asks, brows drawn.

Crowley groans, throwing his head back with the motion as if the sound travels right up from his feet. “Yeah. The Dead Woman. Mictecacihuatl, for one. _Morta_ , for another. The goddess of death for the Aztecs and the Romans, respectively. _Not_ of the underworld, Angel. Not _of the dead_. Of, of the act of dying itself. _Pagan_ deals!”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, thoughtfully. “Well, that does rather explain her range, doesn’t it?”

“Angel.”

“You said it yourself: terrible things could be done with my feathers in the wrong hands. Don’t we want them back?”

“The value isn’t even close to comparable,” Crowley hisses. “You’re an _angel_. You can’t just give your faith over. Bad enough you’ve lost your faith in God in the first place, even worse if you go believing in, in, in _false idols.”_

Aziraphale raises a brow at him.

“Yes, I know! Big talk from the demon. I see the irony. You _know_ it was never like that, for me.”

Aziraphale pats his shoulder a few times. “I know, dear.”

“You can’t make this deal.”

“You know, it assumes that I’ll ever get my faith back at all. I might not. And then she’d never have it. And she wouldn’t be able to use my feathers for anything in the meantime, either, just in case.”

Crowley stares at him. “Are you--what are you up to?”

“I’m not sure, yet,” Aziraphale admits. “I wasn’t expecting any of this to happen. But it wouldn’t be so bad, would it? To just leave that one well enough alone, wherever it is.”

“You’re an _angel_ ,” Crowley repeats. 

“You’re a demon,” Aziraphale replies, flatly. “You seem to do all right.”

Crowley swallows. “I-I never lost it, Angel.”

Aziraphale tilts his head. “What?”

“My faith. Sure, I’ll admit, God and I are hardly what I’d call friendly, anymore. And plenty of demons in Hell gave it up for a lost cause during the Fall. But--that plan? That ineffable nonsense? I believe in it. I don’t understand it, not even a lick, nor do I necessary appreciate it. But I know it’s real. I know He has something up his sleeve, wheels within wheels, whatever you like. I know He’s there and He’s up to something. I trust it exists, if nothing else. Isn’t that faith?”

Aziraphale remains silent.

“And you have to think more broadly, don’t you? Faith in God is one thing. But that’s not all you lost. Faith is has, you know. Layers. Onion-y. Faith in God, faith in humanity, faith in the bloody London tube schedule. Faith, trust, hope. They go _together_. If you’re lacking one, who knows what--.”

Someone knocks on the loo door. 

“Er, yes?” Crowley calls.

“I would like to speak with you, Aziraphale,” Santa Muerta says through the door.

“Uhm, he’s busy,” Crowley replies.

Aziraphale shoots him an incredulous look.

Crowley shrugs helplessly.

And suddenly the already cramped bathroom gets even more crowded as the skeletal figure appears in the room. She squeezes her thin body between the two entities, eyes only on Aziraphale. “There are many boons to be had at my alters,” she tells him earnestly. “There is power to be had in kneeling at my feet.”

“I’m not so good at kneeling, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale informs her, curtly. “I’ve bad knees.”

“You need not decide now,” she says, as if only just deciding it. “I can wait. I am patient.”

“Oh, good. Well, then. Let’s talk about it later, shall we?”

She hums. “I will keep your feathers safe,” she tells him. “In the meantime, perhaps some advice--for free, of course. This is a fine place--it’s good for you. But you’re not reading the right books. I’ll leave you a list.”

“Santa Muerta’s book club,” Crowley mutters, unheeded.

And then she’s gone.

\--

The list of books is not long, and the titles leave Aziraphale baffled. 

Crowley plucks it from his hand, reading the text to himself. 

“Kids’ books, mostly?” the demon comments.

“Fiction, all of it,” the angel adds.

“They say avid readers are more empathetic than most people. All that practice walking around in other people's’ shoes.”

Aziraphale purses his lips, unconvinced. 

“Can’t hurt much, can it? Reading?”

“Not in my experience,” Aziraphale replies, deadpan.

“Well, then. I’ll go play fetch, shall I? Have a seat.”

Crowley has the knack for the Dewey Decimal System that one would expect from a creature of evil, honestly. He plucks the titles with ease into a big stack and sets them down on the couch beside Aziraphale just as the angel finishes the last few pages of _From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler_. 

“Good, was it?”

Aziraphale frowns to himself, mulling Crowley’s idle question over with more thought than strictly required. “She had something missing,” the angel muses. “She wasn’t quite sure what it was, but she thought she could find it if she ran away to somewhere new, somewhere full of some of the best that humanity had made--not hard to feel empathetic to _that_ , all things considered. But, yes. It was good.”

Crowley smiles at him pushing a new book into his hands. “Never been so grateful that Wood woman taught you how to speed read.”

Aziraphale ignores him, already cracking into _Bridge to Terabithia_ with _A Wrinkle in Time_ and _Charlotte’s Web_ in his lap. Crowley watches him a while and then, bored, goes off to see if Janette will show him how to play Oregon Trail on the computers.

\--

Crowley hisses lowly as yet another of his traveling homesteaders (named “Dorothy”--the rest are “Rose,” “Blanche,” and “Sophia”) dies of dysentery. He uses the lull in the game to peek over the large, boxy screen at the angel. Immediately, he abandons the game and ducks across the library, quickly capturing the angel’s hands in his.

“Hey,” he greets, sounding only half as frazzled as he feels. “All right?”

The angel’s tears are familiar, reminding Crowley sharply of a summer’s day in their backyard at Tadfield. He supposes it’s a good sign, in the long run, but the sight still makes him sad.

Aziraphale takes in several loud, wet, gulping breaths. He doesn’t seem especially in distress, but he’s certainly moved by something. He swallows thickly and gestures to the messy pile of books around him with a hand. “I barely even got through the first half of the list,” he says, with a sodden laugh.

Crowley, refusing to feel remotely indebted to Dead Woman just hums in distant reply. “All full up on empathy, then, are we?”

Aziraphale laughs again. “Oh, it’s--a lot,” he agrees, faintly. 

“It’s just like innocence. You just have to get used to having it, again. It’ll get easier.”

Aziraphale nods agreeably, rubbing at his eyes. Crowley miracles him a handkerchief--white with a tiny snake embroidered in the corner--and the angel smiles at him, dabbing at his face and the corners of his eyes. He gazes at Crowley’s face thoughtfully, sniffling. “Oh, my dear. What a weight there is on your shoulders.” He touches Crowley’s shoulder with a hand as if to emphasize his point.

Crowley releases a breath, immediately sagging forward against the touch and then falling forward all the way until his head rests on Aziraphael’s arm. “This hurts more than I expected,” he mutters, rather resentfully. 

Aziraphale hums lightly and strokes his hair. “I’m afraid it’s not likely to get easier.” He pauses, then asks, tentatively. “Why didn’t you just tell me how you felt? I would have understood--or, at least, I would have tried to. You could have said this was all too much for you, dear.”

“And then what? I can’t keep up, so we drop it? I can’t take the pressure, so we leave you half of what you are? Never. I could take it. I could. I did. Didn’t I?”

“Of course,” Aziraphale replies, soothingly. “You did very well. You still are. I’m sure you still will.”

“Not quite so much on my own, now, at least,” Crowley says. “Huzzah for that.”

Aziraphale tugs at the nape of Crowley’s shirt collar rather fretfully until the demon sits up and meets his eyes again. Aziraphale’s gaze is searching. Whatever he’s looking for, he must find it, because he smiles. “There. I wasn’t sure, really, if you meant it.”

“Meant _what_?”

“It’s so hard to tell with you, when you’re really glad to do something and when you’re only doing it for my sake--it was absolutely _impossible_ when relying on logical clues alone. But I thought I was right, about you and Them.”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Angel, please. My dignity. Leave it intact.”

“I’ll never tell,” Aziraphale promises. “Though, I regret to inform you, Crowley, I rather thing they already know how much you like them, really.”

Crowley groans. “My reputation, to bits, right before my eyes.”

“Demons like children,” Aziraphale says, purposefully setting Crowley up.

“To _eat_ , yeah.”

Aziraphale smiles, not disappointed at all. 

\--

Aziraphale kisses Janette’s hand when they say goodbye, leaving the woman absolutely flustered. Crowley shoots him a look. Aziraphale waves him off. “Trust me, she needed that. Though, really, I should have made you do it, instead. She thinks you’re a dish.”

“That’s because I _am_ a dish,” Crowley says. “You’re the only person in all of Creation who doesn’t know it.”

“My dear boy,” Aziraphale replies, absolutely affronted, “I most certainly do!”

Crowley grins and may even blush, just a tad.

“Where to next?”

The question causes the demon to step up short, his expression going grim. “Well, I know what I want to go finding, this time, without a doubt. And I think I even know how to get it.”

Aziraphale tilts his head at him. “Crowley--,” he starts, warningly.

“You said you’d think about it. No one ever said you couldn’t be looking for it while the deal sits on the table.”

“I really don’t think--.”

“So let me do the thinking. That’s how this goes, isn’t it? You trust me. At least a little. Enough to go where I tell you to go.”

“I can’t imagine she’ll take it well, should we recover my faith without speaking to her, first.”

“That’s a bridge I am more than willing to cross when we get to it, Angel, and not before.”

Aziraphale considers him. “It is, in the end, my decision to make...isn’t it?”

Crowley closes his eyes briefly, pained. “G--For-- _ugh_. Don’t ask me to determine that. Don’t ask because there’s really only one good answer and I can’t--I can’t give it to you.”

“It’s my decision to make,” Aziraphale says, but his voice is absolutely uncertain.

“You can’t right now make any choices right now,” Crowley grounds out. “You don’t even trust yourself enough to _know_ that it’s your decision what you put your faith in! You have to ask me to tell you! And I _can’t_ tell you--I can’t. I’m too selfish.”

Aziraphale worries the tiny hole in his sleeve, but he keeps his eyes on Crowley, reading him. “There’s that weight on your shoulders, again,” he comments, apologetically.

“Just don’t--let’s make a deal of our own, all right?”

Aziraphale waits.

“We get it all back. Everything that you’re still missing, everything all settled and in place as it should be. And then...then, Aziraphale, you can do whatever the hell you please. All right?”

Aziraphale considers him. “What if I choose to give Santa Muerta my faith?”

Crowley flinches, but he doesn’t break eye contact. “Then I’ll support you. _After_ you’re of sound mind. And _only_ after that.”

Aziraphale puts out his hand. “Deal, then.”

Crowley shakes it, tense as a wire. “Deal.”


	4. Interlude

The emotional empathy of an angel is, in fact, not especially better or worse than the average person’s. Aziraphale isn’t what one would consider “an empath” and he certainly can’t read or anticipate thoughts based on emotional cues alone. But he’s old. (There’s no two ways about it; after the first millenia or so hanging around mortal beings, you just have to accept the truth). He’s old and experienced and not entirely unclever. He’s learned a few things, given all that time. That’s all.

And by “a few things,” he means “Crowley,” because, quite frankly, he hasn’t paid much attention to anything else in six thousand years. There’s his collection of books, perhaps, but those don’t generally have much in the way of feelings. (And Aziraphale avoids purchasing the ones that do--there’s always demonic interference involved in the form of a curse of somesuch, and he can’t be bothered).

Aziraphale has _learned_ Crowley. He has learned the height of his highs and the depths of his lows. He has learned what makes Crowley content and what makes him restless. He has learned how to influence those emotions, in fact, though he tries not to overplay his hand (manipulation isn’t very angelic, especially when the one being manipulated isn’t entirely aware of what’s going on).

Sitting in the Bentley’s passenger seat once more, the soft sounds of the road filling the silence between then, Aziraphale sits back and closes his eyes and simply _knows_ Crowley, inside and out.

He has no trust. He has no faith. But he _knows_ , and that will have to suffice.

“I have something I want to do,” Aziraphale says. 

Crowley glances at him, eyebrows raised over his shades. “You do?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’m listening.”

Aziraphale pushes his fingertip through the hole in his sleeve. Crowley flinches but doesn’t reach over to stop him, even despite the fact that the sleeve in question is looking ratty, indeed. Aziraphale frowns at it.

“Hey,” Crowley says, softly. “Whatever it is, I can at least hear you out.”

Aziraphale nods. That’s certainly true.

“I think I know where the New Tree is, and I want to go to it.”

Crowley makes a soft, choked sound (sort of like a “hnrk!”). The Bentley rumbles into the shoulder and abruptly stops. A car behind them honks in dismay and Crowley makes a rude hand gesture after it. Then he turns to Aziraphale, tugging off his glasses in the process. His yellow eyes are wide. “‘New Tree’ as in ‘the new, improved Tree of Knowledge that I vaguely referenced months ago and _said_ was _theoretical_ ’? That one?”

“Yes.”

Crowley hisses. He puts his glasses down in his lap and runs his fingers, frustrated, through his hair a few times. “All right. All right. Fine. Of course.”

Aziraphale reaches out and tugs his hands down into Crowley’s lap, pressing them against his thighs, holding them still. “I know you’re upset--.”

“Understatement.”

“But you promised to listen.”

“Who’s not listening? I’m listening! Look at me, listening.”

“Perhaps you could do it slightly more calmly? I have empathy, now, remember? You’re making me nervous, too.”

Crowley’s hands twitch under Aziraphale’s. He takes a few deep, slow breaths. “Fine. Go on.”

“I’ve been thinking about Santa Muerta. And I’ve been thinking about Heaven. And I’ve been thinking about the Ineffable Plan.”

“Always thinking too much. Definitely your biggest problem.”

“The _biggest_ , really?” Aziraphale challenges, wryly. 

“...One of them, then,” Crowley mutters. “All right. And where has all this thinking lead you, exactly?”

“Adam.”

“What?”

“Adam still has his powers. They were dormant, perhaps, but we woke them up--and easily, too. All we had to do was reveal our true natures, and he was restored again. And if we think of Adam not as the Antichrist, exactly, but as something...adjacent--well. When Satan Fell, he didn’t just mope around like any normal grounded angel, did he? He became something different. More powerful. Not exactly on par with God, I would argue, but very close.”

“I’m not following.”

“So, put it in different terms. Think of Satan as a god--that’s with a small ‘g’--like a pagan entity. And if you put it that way, that doesn’t make Adam _only_ the Antichrist. He’s the son of a god. A demigod, to term it properly.”

“I don’t--.”

Aziraphale holds up a hand. “Listen.”

“So, Adam has retained his powers. But his role as the Antichrist is long past. There’s nothing for him to do with them, anymore, in that capacity. However, what if Adam is a force unto his own, now? Not of Heaven or Hell, but humanity--A godly representative of the whole human race. And if Adam is a deity of his own type, a new god, and Santa Muerta is an old god, then there must be more in the world, mustn’t there?”

“Sure. I’ve crossed paths with a few. _Very_ briefly, Aziraphale. They’re not the kind of being you want to get too close to. I wouldn’t even take one out for a casual drink, let alone make friends.”

“If _they_ exist, then others have already sat at the level of God--that’s big ‘G’. It’s hardly unique.”

“It’s _not_ the same,” Crowley argues. “Humans made all of that lot. Belief and whatever. Created them out of their unconscious influences. Like with the Four Horsemen. _God_ isn’t like that. God was already here! God made the humans, not the other way ‘round.”

Aziraphale waves a hand. “Timing is irrelevant in these situations, you know that.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley grounds out. “Your capacity for blasphemy is _astonishing_ , to _say the least_.” 

Aziraphale smiles at him thinly. “I’ve been thinking about Heaven,” he reminds. “About how Hell got their own back--or tried to, at least--but Heaven hasn’t yet made a move. And I remember what we talked about after that mess in Tadfield the first time: Next time, it’ll be both of them--Heaven and Hell--versus the humans and the two of us. I think that’s unfair odds. We need much more power if humanity stands even half a chance. Adam could come in handy, if he’s still around, but I want options. I want to, to--well, I don’t know what to call it.”

Crowley, who is no stranger to video-game mechanics, groans knowingly. “You want to _level up_.”

Aziraphale puzzles over that and then nods, beaming. “Yes. Exactly that. Let’s go level up.”

\--

“I want you to tell me, genuinely, that you understand you wouldn’t be even _thinking_ about this if you weren’t currently a living chunk of swiss cheese. You are lacking trust and faith, which are, apparently, two cornerstones of your being that are critical to _not making insane decisions_.”

Aziraphale takes the demon’s hands in his. “I have no hope,” Aziraphale reminds him. “I have no hope at all. No desires, no expectations, no idealistic idea that everything will turn out all right. Crowley, the apocalypse will come again, likely sooner than any of us would wish, and I have no reason at all to believe, in this moment, that it will end in anything but utter destruction.”

“You want insurance.”

“If nothing else, I want us to go down fighting. Don’t you?”

Crowley huffs a small breath. “You keep putting all of these choices at my feet. I can’t do this.”

“Then don’t choose. Just take me where I want to go.”

“That’s _a choice_.”

“I could go alone. But I know you wouldn’t let me.”

“Never,” Crowley agrees, weakly. 

Aziraphale strokes his thumb over the top of Crowley’s hand, staring at where their skin touches. “Dear, are you familiar with the hierarchies of angels?”

“Uh, vaguely? I mean, I knew them. But it’s not the type of information one retains, if you don’t have to. I think I was at the bottom of it.”

“Angels are most concerned with the affairs of humanity. I wouldn’t be surprised.” Aziraphale continues to stroke his thumb in soft circles, avoiding Crowley’s eyes. “For reference: Michael is an archangel. They’re above angels, and Michael himself is the highest order of archangel--a seraphim. There’s only seven of them, in all, and they guard entire nations. They’re very important.”

Crowley sits patiently through this lesson, waiting for the punchline.

“I’m a principality. They’re above the archangels. They’re over the bands of angels. They’re meant to give them their missions and the like.”

Crowley frowns. “You’ve never done that.”

Aziraphale smiles softly, still not looking at him. “I’m a bit of an odd case. I was demoted, you see. Not long after Eden.”

“Demoted?” Crowley questions, cautiously.

“There are three spheres. Principalities, archangels, angels--they’re all the lowest sphere, the third. The closest to humanity, meant to protect them and guide them and deliver messages to them from God. The first sphere, the one on the top, are closest to God. They serve Him and His son directly, his vigilant servants. There are three levels of angels in that sphere. The topmost are seraphims, like Michael.”

Aziraphale draws a shaky breath. “And the second from the top are cherubims. There were four of them, once. They guard the throne of God. And for a short time, they guarded the four paths that led to the Tree of Knowledge.”

Crowley breathes in a sharp burst of air. “Demoted,” he repeats, pained. 

“I gave away my sword,” Aziraphale reminds him.

“You used to sit at the foot of the _throne of God_ ,” Crowley parrots, stunned. 

“I did,” Aziraphale replies, softly. “And so did Lucifer, before the Fall.”

\--

Crowley pulls his hands away. Aziraphale sits back and folds his own in his lap, drawing his gaze from their once-joined hands to only his own. They look empty. He closes them into fists.

“What am I supposed to take away from this, Angel? Am I supposed to go along with this harebrained idea of yours, content in the knowledge that, hey, you’re just getting back to your former link in the celestial food chain?”

“Surpassing it, I think,” Aziraphale replies, smoothly. “Cherubims aren’t _so_ powerful, in the grand scheme of things.”

“And following in the footsteps of your ol’ buddy _Lucifer_?”

“We weren’t friends,” Aziraphale says. “He was very popular, Lucifer. I’m afraid I found the crowds quite intimidating.”

“I was wrong, before. I told you that you’re still you, just different. I was _dead_ wrong. This is--this isn’t right, Angel. It’s so far from the correct thing to do that I don’t know how I can possibly--I can’t fix this. If you do this, there’s no going back, even if we put all your pieces together, again. You won’t be the same.”

“I know,” Aziraphale agrees. “That’s rather the point.”

Crowley swallows thickly. They’ve been parked in the lot of the storage depot for the past hour or more, having this conversation. He growls softly, throwing the Bentley into gear. 

“Where are we going?” Aziraphale asks, timidly, after they’ve been on the road for a few minutes.

“Straight to Tadfield,” Crowley says, sharply. “You and I are due a meeting with the boy formerly known as the antichrist.”

\--

Tabor Cottage is warm and safe and _right_ as they walk into it. Aziraphale stands a moment in the door, basking in the love he can feel in its rooms. 

“You’re back quick,” Adam remarks. He’s just as he had been, but there’s something shrewd in his eyes, something that hadn’t been there in the long months they had spent before Aziraphale had displayed his wings.

“We did promise to visit,” Aziraphale says. 

Crowley disappears past a curtain of clear plastic sheeting; the reconstruction for the new kitchens and dining area is already underway.

“Didn’t think you really would,” Adam shrugs. “Thought you’d have better things to do.”

Aziraphale sits on the couch in the living room, perching on its arm. He stares into Noodle’s enclosure. “She’s looking well.”

“Sure. Pepper’d never let her down.”

Aziraphale remains quiet, watching the snake lazily loop herself around the large branch set into the glass for just that purpose. 

“I should be angry with you,” Adam says. “For waking me up.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I would.”

Adam shrugs. “It’s done, now. No going back. And I suppose it isn’t so bad. I’m in control, now. I know how it works, and it’s mine to do with as I please. No agendas, no whispering voices. Just me, making choices.”

“That can be a scary place to be in, can’t it?”

“Doing what you’re thinking isn’t a guarantee it’ll turn out all right.”

“No. I am well aware.”

“You got sent to a place where they made you powerless. That’s how--well, he felt that way, too, I reckon. Like he couldn’t match up. And it made him afraid enough to question, to rebel--.”

“To Fall.”

Aziraphale’s sleeve tears into two pieces under his fingers. He sighs, gripping the scrap of fabric in his hand. “I don’t intend to Fall. I intend to do quite the opposite. It’s hardly the same thing.”

Adam comes up to him, careful to keep in his line of sight. The boy situations himself between the angel and the snake in her glass. He reaches out a hand and Aziraphale’s sleeve stitches itself whole. “You’d be something bigger than me,” Adam tells him, solemnly. “Have you thought that maybe I wouldn’t like that, much? What’s to keep you from going bad, siding’ against me and my gang with the other two?”

Aziraphale considers this. “Crowley, I think.”

Adam shakes his head. “No. He wouldn’t. He loves us. He admires us. He cares about us. He feels _responsible_. But if it comes down to us or you? We don’t stand a chance.”

Aziraphale looks at the boy. At the golden-haired youth who, not so long ago, had moaned about his coursework and had played planted a pirate flag on a treehouse and had sung, at the top of voice, mangled Queen lyrics while he and his friends built themselves a loop-de-loop slide. He thought of Pepper, biting as her name and full of terrible love. Brian, dependable and calm, hardly aware of his own importance in the dynamic of Them. Wensleydale, old beyond his years and fragile with it, but so willing, always, to reach out and help. 

There are so many others. Shadwell, gruff and battered and courageous. Madame Tracy, warm and open and endlessly kind. Anathema and Agnes, cut from the same sturdy cloth, practical to a fault. Even poor, hopeless Newt, who had broken the chain in a line of devastation without even trying. 

And then, of course, there’s always Eve.

“I would _never_ hurt any of you,” Aziraphale whispers. “I’d _never--_.”

“Mr. C!” Adam shouts even as Aziraphale folds up on himself with a cry, falling into the boy’s arms. Adam braces his trainers against the floor, struggling to keep the angel upright as he writhes in terrible pain.

\--

_You are failed creation, Aziraphael. I am ashamed of you._

_I’ve never been a very good angel._

_I’ve broken my bond as a Principality._

_I failed to do my duty to my God and His favorite children_.

_I wouldn’t even have bothered to save the world at all if Crowley--._

_I have failed in my purpose from the beginning._

\--

Aziraphale claws his fingernails into consciousness and pulls himself, gasping, out of the dark. 

_I did the best I could in the time I could do it, and I will_ always _do that much, no matter what_.

Crowley is wrapped bodily around him. They’re sitting on the carpeted floor of Tabor Cottage, in the living room, up against the arm of the couch. Crowley is rocking him, the motion slow and soothing. Aziraphale rather doubts the demon is aware he’s doing it. 

“He’s up,” Adam’s voice says, from somewhere not too near by. 

Crowley stops rocking and peers down at Aziraphale. The angel squirms slightly in his arms. “Too tight, dear.”

“Sorry,” the demon blurts out, letting him go entirely and scooting back. “You just...you weren’t waking up.”

Aziraphale hums in reply. He catches Adam’s eye. The boy is pale, spooked.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m sorry,” the angel tells the antichrist.

Adam looks away for a moment and then meets his eyes again with a too-casual shrug. “S’all right.”

“I’ve gotten my self-trust back,” Aziraphale tells the room at large in a thoughtful voice. “It’s very different, having that, isn’t it?”

“Probably so,” Crowley agrees, faintly. 

“I have no intention whatsoever of destroying the human race,” the angel assures the demon, seriously.

Crowley blinks slowly. “Uh. Good.”

Aziraphale nods. “I thought so.” He pushes himself up on his feet, only swaying a bit. “I like the color of this couch. I always have, but it never occured to me until just this minute.”

Crowley snorts a soft laugh. “Self-trust. What a marvel.” A pause. “...Now you’ll be even more bossy.”

“Not bossy,” Aziraphale replies, offended. “Simply...opinionated.” He offers a hand and pulls Crowley to his feet.

Adam approaches, tentatively. “You’re really sure you’ll be safe?”

“As safe as I can be,” Aziraphale says, unwilling to make promises he might not be able to keep. “Humanity has nothing to fear from me.”

Adam looks to Crowley. “There’s 20-million in the combined forces of Heaven and Hell. If I got told right in school, there’s just about 5-billion people on Earth. If it were down to numbers, I think we’d win it. But I’ve played lots of Risk, an’ it doesn’t always work like that.”

“You want a weapon,” Crowley says, stiffly.

“I want options,” Adam replies, eerily echoing the angel from before. “If you lot can give ‘em to me, I’m going to take it.”

\--

Adam takes them where they need to go. 

“S’how it’s gotta work,” Adam tells them, with a shrug. “Right there in the book, if I recall correctly.”

“‘And a little child shall lead them,’” Crowley quotes. “Yeah, I’ve heard it.”

The demon looks over at the angel holding his hand. “Are you the leopard, then, or the goat?”

Aziraphale sniffs. “I haven’t an idea at all. But I know I’m the lamb. And you’re the wolf.”

Crowley growls, playing along. “I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll--.”

“Gross,” Adam calls back at them, the tone of embarrassed pre-teens everywhere. 

\--

It’s not a tree.

Or, rather, it might have been, once. But times change. And it’s not a tree anymore.

Crowley looks around, skeptically. “And where’s Aslan, in all of this?”

“What?” Aziraphale asks, quite confused.

Adam grins. “You’re not a leopard or a wolf, then. You’re Mr. Tumnus.”

“ _What_?” Aziraphale repeats, entirely at a loss.

“I’ll get you a set for the ‘shop later,” Crowley says. “Honestly, you call yourself an agent of Heaven. You’ve never heard of C.S. Lewis?”

“Oh, _those_ ,” Aziraphale says, in a curious tone of voice, and does not expound.

It is, of course, a lamp post.

“Lamppost of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,” Crowley intones, sarcastically.

“Nah, you’re looking at it all wrong. Wrong translation,” Adam corrects him, wickedly. “S’Lamp post of Life, innit it?”

Crowley snorts a laugh.

“Will you two be serious for a moment? I’m--doing something rather terrifying, just now.”

Crowley squeezes his hand. “I trust you,” he says.

“You don’t _really_.”

“I think this is a _terrible_ , horrible, awful idea,” Crowley admits readily. “But I do trust you.”

Adam shrugs. “Besides, if it does go real bad, I don’t have to finish my maths homework tonight. It’s a win all around.”

Crowley grins at the boy, reaching out with his free hand to ruffle his golden hair. “Cheek,” he says, very fond.

Aziraphale lets go of Crowley’s hand and steps forward. The closer he gets to the tall, old-fashioned lamp post, the brighter the flame in it starts to glow. The light casts out, making the shadows around it seem all the darker.

The light touches Crowley and the demon hisses loudly, rapidly stepping back. Adam stays where he is, basking in the glow.

“My dear?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley is out of his line of sight, adding to his discomfort. 

“Sorry, Angel. It burns. Not quite as bad as holy water, but I don’t wanna test it.”

“Just stay back, then,” Aziraphale suggests. He swallows hard, pressing his hand to the iron surface of the lamp.

“I think you gotta touch the fire part,” Adam says.

Aziraphale, for the first time, notices the small lamplighter’s ladder leaning against the post. He settles it more firmly into position and climbs to the top. It’s only a bit of effort to twist and tug the glass globe from its perch. He stares into the flickering flame and feels...something.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asks.

“Here, Angel,” Crowley calls back.

“If this _does_ go badly, will you--would you…?”

A long, heavy pause. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale presses, keeping his eye on the flame.

The demon’s response cracks in his throat. “Yeah, Aziraphale. I’ll take care of you.”

And Aziraphale trusts him. 

And, with that, the angel reaches out and puts his hand into the light.

\--

_Funny if we both got it wrong, eh? Funny if I did the good thing and you did the bad one, eh?_

Aziraphale tilts his head back and listens to the Universe. He can’t be entirely certain, but the music of the spheres sounds an awful lot like the opening lines of Bohemian Rhapsody.

A cherubim has six wings. A principality has only two.

A god has as many wings as he pleases, as it turns out.

\--

They’re nearly fifty miles out of Tadfield, Crowley’s knuckles pale on the steering wheel, the passenger seat empty and Aziraphale spread out in the back when the angel rouses and focuses on this tiny, minuscule section of reality and says, quite clearly, “You know, I think it’ll all turn out all right, actually” and then gets himself quite lost in fractals and infinities, again, while hope throbs out into the empty places in his heart.


	5. Act III: Save Me - An Old Garden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The "blasphemy" tag gets serious from this chapter onward. 
> 
> Specifically, Aziraphale becomes a god (duh) and therefore his relationship with God becomes...complicated. His relationship with Crowley is also about to take a big turn (but it's positive, I promise).
> 
> Moreover, Aziraphale's (and Crowley's!) only frame of reference for true divinity comes from God. As a result, you will find MANY passages from the Bible and other biblical references that have been re-purposed and all out mangled to suit the needs of Aziraphale and Crowley as characters and myself as an author. 
> 
> There's probably other, smaller, examples of this blasphemy throughout the remainder of the fic--I honestly have no frame of reference to provide better cautions (I'm a big ol' formerly Catholic atheist, friends; I wouldn't recognize blasphemy if it kicked me in the teeth). Please just take good care of yourselves and feel free to contact me if you find something disagreeable that needs further tagging, etc. 
> 
> You're all beautiful. Thanks for reading.

Mostly, it’s about Knowing things.

Aziraphale Knows many things, after touching the fire’s Light. Primarily and perhaps most importantly, what he Knows about is a card game that isn’t quite poker, is played in darkness using cards with nothing on them, and is orchestrated by a Dealer who never stops smiling. 

The thing about card games, though, is that the angel has played quite a lot of them, recently--especially Go Fish (though Crowley had complained the game was a rip off of Happy Families). And in that time, game after game, Aziraphale had learned some useful tricks--because Pepper likes to cheat.

Here is what Aziraphale knows (not Knows) about cheating at card games:

The art of distraction is vital.

One can never go wrong bringing your own cards to the table.

Sometimes you simply have to pout spectacularly until the other players let you win.

He’s not certain, yet, how these lessons will apply to the game that God plays with the Universe, but he’s not the sort to ignore valuable information, regardless.

\--

He drifts.

Time and space have no meaning, so he’s not certain how far he goes or for how long he’s gone. It’s the sort of endless vacation one hears about in adverts--no worries and quite possibly no shirt nor shoes (or any physical mass at all).

What he’s most aware of, instead of time and space, are souls. There are quite a lot of them, to start. A bit over five billion all over the planet and heaps more in the two pocket dimensions that Aziraphale eventually recognizes are Heaven and Hell. There’s not so much difference, as far as the angel can tell, between any one of them. All the souls have the same steady, yearning glow.

It’s as he gets closer that the distinctions become clear as needs and thoughts filter through the static of distance, piercing his perceptions. Layers upon layers of voices, hoping and dreaming and pleading their way through each day.

Aziraphale focuses on the souls living on the planet. He moves among them like a breeze and listens (or Listens?). From time to time, he intercedes. Only a tiny bit. Only when truly necessary. Such intercessions don’t feel at all like performing miracles. Miracling things is a second-hand affair, pulling on the power of God. He makes a request of that power and is given what he desires--a repaired bike, a glow of light, a better vintage of wine. It’s small magic in the greater scheme of things; he’d always known it was paltry, but now he Knows just how insignificant his miracling truly was. 

Now, he can move mountains. Hypothetically speaking, of course (who would want him to move a mountain?). More practically, he can smother fires and bring rainstorms. He can heal illnesses and stop accidents and prod at the flight pattern of a bird and change the course of all reality in the prodding. It’s a delicate system of interwoven strings and he moves among them with all the ease and grace of a feather on the wind, plucking the threads as he pleases to achieve certain results.

He’s dancing in and around these stretches of thread--thin and sparkling like spider’s silk--when he first feels the ache. His perception is full to brimming with souls, their prayers all around him, dense as fog. And, yet, somewhere in the midst of that constant haze, he senses the dull, burning glow of something broken and pained. He ignores it, at first--the souls he tends are not purposefully demanding, but they are quite loud and they do so need his attention--but the sense of unease it causes persists and grows with the passage of incalculable time.

He follows the glow, gently pushing his way through the oppressive fog of petitions, stepping over and through long threads of interwoven fates. The closer he steps to it, he becomes aware of such a thread tangled up in him, protruding from his sternum, tugging him toward the glow. He’d been so far afield, before, that he hadn’t noticed its shimmering length.

As he gets closer, he can hear a new voice among the rabble of the many gathered, needing souls of men.

“--never expected this, of course. If anyone had stepped up to me that day in the Garden and said ‘oh, don’t go approaching that angel, Crawly, there’s only trouble there,’ I would have thought they were pulling my tail. _Trouble_? You? Ha. And, yet. Should have known. Should have expected it. No angel goes off and gives his weapon to _banished humans_ just willy nilly, do they? Red flag, right there. Warning: this celestial being is absolutely barmy, do not approach. Except how could I not? I’d only slithered over to goad you, honestly. Figured you’d be like the other ones, all stuffy and refusing to speak to me, a lowly demon. But, no. You joined the conversation easy as you please and confessed, right there, what you’d done. ‘Hope I didn’t do the wrong thing,’ you said. Would it have mattered, if you’d been certain it was against His wishes? Doubtful. She’d been scared, poor thing. Scared and young and carrying new life. And Lo--well, _everybody_ who knows you knows that Aziraphale the angel-- _cherubim,_ at that!--couldn’t possibly stand about and let some poor soul be scared while he had a perfectly good sword going to waste in his hand.”

Close to the glow, now, the ache of it is overwhelming. The pain that rolls off the flickering spark fills Aziraphale up with sadness, creating his own internal thrum of dull agony.

“Can’t say you don’t know how to keep a relationship fresh, though, angel, I’ll give you that. Thought we might go stale. Six thousand years behind us and who knows how long ahead of us. Two immortal beings, stuck in our ways. But not you. Oh, no. You just have to go along doing reality-altering things like scattering your essence all over Hell and burning up in a massive fire to become a god.”

Aziraphale lifts a hand.

“‘Course, there’s just me, same as ever. But that’s all right, I’d guess. One of us has to remember our roots. Although, come to think of it, considering where you’ve taken us, I can’t imagine that you’ve entirely forgotten where you came from, after all.”

Aziraphale touches the glow. Compared to the blaze of the fire he had touched before, it’s hardly anything. But he takes more comfort from that faint, familiar warmth than he could have in the inferno of a thousand transformative fires.

\--

He’s lying on his back. Everything above him is a deep, verdant green. His head rests on Crowley’s thigh, and the demon is still talking, unaware of his consciousness. 

He’s itchy all over.

“And what’ll I do, then, if you never wake up? What if there’s nothing in you, anymore, and it all got burnt up, inside as well as out?” 

Aziraphale can feel the ache from before all around him and now it flares sharply out, stabbing straight into his heart. It leaves a bitter taste in the back of his throat.

“Suppose I’d have to find my way out of this place, first. That in and of itself’ll be a trial. I don’t remember it being so labyrinthine, before. ‘Course, I spent most of my time here as a snake, then. Everything looks different from the ground.”

Crowley shifts slightly under Aziraphale’s head. “Next step is likely getting back in contact with Adam. Tell him it didn’t--.” The demon’s voice goes weak, cracked with emotion “--that it didn’t go right.”

Aziraphale tries to open his eyes. They’re heavy, thick with something gritty sticking them down. 

“And then I suppose we plan. For what, I haven’t a clue. And for when, we can only guess. But we should have a plan, shouldn’t we? Seems like a waste, if we don’t. Seems like a bad job, if I just get up and walk away from it all after you--.” A deep, shaky breath. “Fuck, Angel. Not for nothing, but I’m not so sure I know how to go on in a world without you in it. You’ve been here with me since the start.”

Aziraphale shudders at another aching flare of Crowley’s pain. He really _can_ feel what the demon is feeling, now, and he doesn’t care for it one bit.

Crowley goes still and tense. “Aziraphale?” he asks, cautiously. Aziraphale feels warmth near his cheek, as if the demon’s hand has reached out to touch him but has stopped, hovering just over the skin. 

“I don’t think I should--I don’t know what--. Listen, the fire went wild when you touched it. It gobbled you up before Adam or I could so much as--not that we could have--but--. It burned you all up and then snuffed right out. I didn’t think much about it, I just picked you up and we ran back to Tadfield, and I threw you in the car and then you--or, I mean, then we--but.” 

Aziraphale keeps trying and failing to open his eyes.

“Have you ever seen the casts of the bodies they found in Pompeii?” the demon asks. “There’s cracks all over you, but all the same….”

Aziraphale has seen what Crowley’s referring to. Strange humanoid figures seemingly made of stone with decaying bodies hidden underneath. He’s starting to understand the problem. 

He starts with his fingers and toes, first. It takes a moment to make his body understand the wishes of his brain, but eventually he makes his hands and toes bend and twitch. The sound of crackling carbonization precedes the sensation of a cool, muggy breeze against his skin. Crowley makes a low sound that Aziraphale cannot identify--all the emotion coming off of the demon is overwhelmed by that persistent ache--and suddenly the demon’s hands are on him, slipping in the thin space between new skin and charred remains of old flesh, pulling away the dry cocoon from the body of a freshly formed butterfly. 

Crowley pulls smaller fragments of black, oily rock from Aziraphale’s face, brushing the grit off his eyelids. The angel opens his eyes and immediately snaps them shut with a pained sound. The light is too intense, burning against his vision as if he’s staring straight into the sun. Crowley shushes him in soft, soothing nonsense syllables. A moment later, the cool touch of plastic and mental brushes along his temples and the bridge of his nose. “It’s all right,” Crowley assures him, “that’ll help. It’s all right. Open your eyes, Angel.”

Aziraphale blinks his eyes own and slumps in relief. Crowley’s dark shades mute the piercing rays and cast everything in a comfortable, monotone of sepia brown. 

“Suppose it’s all tender, yet,” the demon remarks, speaking slowly. “Like a baby.”

Aziraphale hasn’t the foggiest idea what Crowley means by that, but he nods, anyway. With Crowley’s help, he sits up, the final chunks of black stone sliding off his body and falling into the soft loam beneath them. 

“Where are we?” the angel asks.

“Don’t you know?” The way the demon says it implies a capital-K.

Aziraphale makes a thoughtful sound. “I Knew quite a lot of things. But then I came here, and it’s rather...out of reach. I think I could grab at it, if I liked, but I’d rather not bother, at the moment. It’d be such a terrible fuss.”

Crowley reaches up, knocking ash from his hair. The sight of it reminds Aziraphale of something from his time in Hell, but he pushes it aside and chooses to focus on leaning bodily into the touch, instead.

“Your hair’s gone all golden,” Crowley remarks, thoughtfully. “Skin, too.”

Aziraphale rubs his hands off in the grass and then holds them up for his own inspection. It’s hard to make out while wearing Crowley’s shades, but he has to admit that even then he can see the burnished glow that clings to his dark skin, almost as if he’s been painted with tiny bronze flakes. He wiggles his fingers and the shine along his skin changes accordingly with the shift of light over the surface. He then reaches up and pulls one of his tight curls straight, able to just make out the tips of the strands. The same color as always, but with a new gleam that gives the curl a burnished look. “Odd.”

“We’re in Eden, as near as I can tell,” the demon finally answers. He’s staring at Aziraphale unashamedly, yellow eyes traveling from the top of the angel’s head to his toes and back again. Aziraphale has the dim understanding that his clothes got all burned away and he should probably do something about it. But it is Eden, after all. His wouldn’t be the first unadorned flesh to which the Garden has borne witness.

“Really?” Aziraphale says, looking about. It’s certainly all very lush and green, where they sit. “I remember that going bad. Went all to seed, didn’t it?”

“God razed it, after Adam and Eve were chased out.”

“It doesn’t _look_ razed,” Aziraphale remarks.

Crowley approaches him slowly, strangely cautious. Now sitting within arms reach instead of crouching down at Aziraphale’s feet. Aziraphale reaches out a hand to the demon. Crowley flinches back with a short “uhm” sound. Aziraphale lets his hand fall. 

The demon clears his throat, making a show of looking around the Garden. “No. I mean, it was definitely destroyed. I don’t think this is the real--the former--I mean, that is to say...you made it.”

“ _I_ made it?” Aziraphale echoes. “That doesn’t sound like me, dear.”

Crowley chokes on a laugh. “Yeah, no. I’m aware. But you did. We were in the Bentley, going back to London--I didn’t know where else to go, really--and then all the sudden _plants_ started popping up all over. I didn’t go exploring too far afield, but I spent a lot of time in Eden’s underbrush. I recognize it well enough. Most of this vegetation doesn’t exist, anymore.”

Aziraphale peers up. The trees are so tall and their branches so leavy with leaves that hardly any light filters down to the ground level at all. The angel frowns at that thought, going to take Crowley’s shades off. The demon lunges forward, stopping him with a touch.

“I wouldn’t. You’re all...new, is all. Let them acclimate.”

Aziraphale leans into the weight of Crowley’s hand on his. He closes his eyes in disappointment when the demon draws his hand away.

“You’re afraid of me,” Aziraphale says, accusatory.

“I’m wary,” Crowley argues. “As I should be. I don’t know if you missed it but you _made a garden_. The entirety of Eden, reborn. Angel, even with all of the powers of your angelic class behind you, you couldn’t miracle your way through that.”

“I was answering prayers,” Aziraphale blurts out, suddenly remembering. “Before I woke up here.”

Crowley sighs, covering his face with his hands for a moment and then wiping them hard down the lines of his jaw. “New territory,” the demon mutters, unhappily. 

“Not entirely,” Aziraphale says. He peers at the demon with a thoughtful expression. “Have I kept my promise? Have I told you, lately, how I love you?”

Crowley grimaces. “No. But it’s been a busy few days. Besides, you don’t have to--.”

“I love you, Crowley.”

Crowley glances over at him, expression carefully blank. “You trust me, again.”

“I do.”

“Yeah. I remember. You said as much, actually, right before you _set yourself on fire._ ”

Aziraphale smiles wryly and lifts his shoulder in a shrug. 

“Innocence, empathy, trust in yourself in others. You’re very nearly a real boy, again.”

“Hope, too, don’t forget.”

“Hope, too?”

Aziraphale frowns at him. “I said so, in the car. I remember.”

“No, what _you_ did was lie in the back seat like a hunk of dead rock and, at one point, made just enough muffled, strangled noises to give me the fright of my life and then went so dead quiet from that point on as to give me a new fright all over again.” 

“Oh. Well. Hope, too.”

Crowley puts his finger up and circles it in a sarcastic ‘yay’ motion, as if waving a tiny flag.

“You’re not listening,” Aziraphale scolds him. “It’s nearly all back. All I’m missing, by my reckoning, is peace and joy. That’s _quite_ close enough to ‘complete’ to count for something, in my book.”

“You keep forgetting faith.”

Aziraphale hums. “Seems superfluous, now. Do you believe gods have faith? In what, do you think? Themselves? Each other?”

“To what entity does God Almighty direct His prayers,” Crowley intones, dryly. 

“Exactly. It’s unnecessary. Besides, we’ve already discussed this. If I regain my faith, I’ll have to decide what to do with it, won’t I?”

Crowley’s eyes go wide in disbelief. “You’re still considering giving it over to Santa Muerta? _Why_?”

“She does still have my feathers.”

“Who cares? That’s drops in the bucket compared to everything else by now, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale frowns. “But what could be done with them--.”

“You’re a _god_ , now,” Crowley interrupts, crossly. “Can you imagine what trouble that bitch could cause with the faith of a god in her arsenal? Pales in comparison to the few firecracker tricks some dark artist could pull with a couple angel feathers.”

“We have no idea at all what she might do if I were to regain my faith and _not_ give it over to her.”

“I’m willing to take the chance,” Crowley says, firmly. “You’re on her level, now. Maybe even above it, for all we know. Compared to another apocalypse, it’s small potatoes.”

 

The echoes of ache in Aziraphale’s chest remain, going knife-edge sharp from time to time with Crowley’s agitation. 

“You’re in pain,” the angel remarks, lowly. “Let me help.”

Crowley’s eyes snap to him, expression betrayed. “You’re in my head, now?”

“Not exactly like that. But a bit like that, actually. I’m afraid I don’t know how to shut it off.”

Crowley hisses moodily under his breath. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“I know. But you did it all anyway, for me. I’m very grateful.”

“You started it. Galloping into Hell like some white knight of virtue to save my sorry arse. What am I to do? Just let you wander the surface of the earth with pieces missing? Let you burn yourself out in divine fire and leave you trapped in the cage of your own charred remains? Ha. Right.”

“I thought reciprocity was the folly of angels?”

Crowley folds his arms over his chest and looks away, peering off into the green growth. “You thought that of love, too. Didn’t think I could feel it, being what I am.”

Aziraphale makes a soft, wounded sound as the ache in his chest blossoms out, full of spikes. “That isn’t true at all. I know I may have--but I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You’re so far above me now it’s laughable. You know that, don’t you? Before, I could content myself with the knowledge that you and I--opposite sides though we might hold--were on the same level. We were agents of the same type, doing the same sort of work on the same field. And now you’re making gardens grow and reading my mind. You’re working machinations and creating your own ineffable plans, and here I am, back where I started--a dunce in a Garden, taking orders from something more powerful than me.”

“I haven’t given any orders,” Aziraphale argues, affronted at the association between himself and Crowley’s superiors.

“‘Let me help,’” Crowley repeats, miserably. 

“That’s hardly an order.”

“And when have I _ever_ been able to say no to you, really? When have I ever failed to do what you wanted of me, time and again? You tell me not to dunk the ducks, so I resurrect them. You tell me not to kill those corporate losers on retreat, so I let them all escape without a scratch. You tell me to stand up before the amassed powers of Heaven and Hell with you and I _do it_ , Angel, every damned time. I’ve never had a choice. I love you so _completely_ , I could never do anything but what you order. What you ask. What you _want_ to say but never work up the courage to suggest.”

“You stood up with me against Heaven and Hell because you love the world, too. It wasn’t all for me.”

Crowley’s smile is bitter. “Fine,” he agrees. “And all the rest?”

Aziraphale would pluck at his sleeve, but he isn’t wearing one. He digs his fingernail into the flesh of his thin arm, instead, picking. “I’m hurting you,” Aziraphale says, unhappily. “I have been for ages, haven’t I?”

“That’s not your fault,” Crowley says, waving a hand dismissively. “That’s how love works.”

“No,” Aziraphale says, firmly. “Maybe for some. But that’s not what you deserve. We can do better than that.” Aziraphale thinks of the aura over Tadfield, of the warm haze of pure _cherished_ love hanging over it. It was so overwhelming, so tender, so full of simple, unrestricted acceptance. 

It’s the kind of unconditional love that God holds for all his creatures, from the worms in the ground to the birds in the sky. From the Fallen to the Risen and all souls in between. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, softly, reaching a hand out to him. “May I help you, please?”

Crowley looks at him, mouth open to argue or rage or something of the like. Something in Aziraphale’s expression leeches the poisonous ire away from him, though, leaving him slumped and blank. The aching in him goes abruptly hollow, empty spaces yearning to be filled.

_And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love._

“‘Beloved,’’” Aziraphale quotes in a whisper, “‘let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.’ Crowley. Please.”

Crowley meets his reaching arms halfway, allowing himself to be pulled to Aziraphale’s body. A glow rises up from the shimmer in the angel’s skin, settling around their entangled forms. “I have done badly by you,” Aziraphale says against Crowley’s skin, peppering him with soft kisses along his temple and the sharp edge of his cheeks. “I have left you tired and hungry and beaten in my name. I have left you shouting and have not answered your call. I’ve left you with no place to rest, the barest of crumbs to eat, and no shield to protect you. You laid yourself down on my alter in sacrifice and received nothing in return for the trouble.”

Crowley clings to him, silent, trembling. Aziraphale has vague memories of shepherds in the dirt in such a state, prostate before the might of God, represented by His angels in swarms of holy light. 

Aziraphale eases his hands gently over the demon’s arms, stroking him as he might a spooked animal, petting him softly until the demon’s terror ebbs and his tremors still. The light around them grows in brightness, piercing Aziraphale’s tender eyes even through the darkness of Crowley’s shades.

“I now establish my covenant with you,” Aziraphale murmurs, head bowed. “I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind on this planet. Never again will I fail to love you as you deserve. Never again will you be left to tire, to hunger, to suffer alone. I will not spurn you nor deny you nor treat you as anything but what you are and have always been to me, my dear: a friend and companion and piece of my own soul.” 

Aziraphale swallows hard, starting to tremble himself, now. Crowley’s tight fists dig into his skin in response, the demon murmuring a low, broken string of soothing nonsense words against the angel’s cheek. He’s half-sensible, overwhelmed with divine power, and yet still aware of Aziraphale’s fear, still desperate to ease it away. Aziraphale huffs a soft, fond laugh against the demon’s hair, bolstered by the gesture to finish what he has started. “This is the sign of the covenant I am making,” Aziraphale repeats, “Whenever I see your mark upon me, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between you and I and all living creatures of every kind on the earth to whom we owe our allegiance and care. I make a mark upon me and with it seal my promise as--.”

His voice falters.

Crowley groans softly, yellow eyes opening in barest slits, meeting Aziraphale’s own behind the protection of the dark, tinted glass. “Go on, Angel,” he presses, in a soft, flickering hiss. There are scales over his skin, making his brows and cheeks shine in Aziraphale’s light.

Aziraphale nods, taking a steadying breath. “And with it seal my promise as your patron and your true god.”

And the ever-building light around them explodes into an piercing blaze of glorious light. And the Garden around them burns away with the force of its glow. And the demon and the angel cling so tightly to each other as to be one figure, huddled together in the resounding darkness. And a new and awesome faith is built between them there, the first pact between a new god and his most revered disciple. 

Wrapping up Aziraphale’s right arm, shimmering yellow-gold against his dark skin, the mark of a large, scaled snake appears, creeping from his wrist up around his shoulder, the broad head painted right over his heart. _I make your mark upon me and with it seal my promise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this better not awaken anything in me


	6. Interlude 2

Adam’s eyes are wary and his small body is tense, though his words are calm and cooly delivered. “So. Lived, then, did you?”

He has the Them standing behind him. Aziraphale would be surprised by this, normally, but he Knows things now--in brief flashes only; he hasn’t had the time to learn how to control anything, yet--and his Knowing reveals that Adam has pulled Them into his secret.

The angel doesn’t begrudge him that. There are some obstacles a person, especially a child, shouldn’t have to whether without the support of his friends. And Aziraphale knows that, when the time comes, the humans will need to understand what is happening around them. The more they can pull into the inner circle of their armies, the better off the earth will be.

Crowley hovers at Aziraphale’s side, so close that the shoulder of his suit jacket brushes against Aziraphale’s own sleeve. (He had miracled himself some clothes before getting into the patiently waiting Bentley, once the shock of what had just happened had worn off enough for Crowley to make the drive).

“Yes,” Aziraphale assures. “I’m quite all right. We both are. How are you all?”

Pepper and Brian trade glances. Wensleydale stares at Aziraphale with wide eyes. Aziraphale can feel the boy’s superficial emotions. They burn bright with awe and a reverence that makes the angel--former angel?--distinctly uncomfortable.

“Have you gotten yourself any butterflies, yet, Wensleydale?” Aziraphale asks, gently. “I should be happy to go over the catalog with you, later, if you’re having trouble picking a breed.”

Wensleydale’s brows draw close. “You’d do that with me, still?”

Aziraphale steps forward and gently squeezes the boy’s thin shoulder. “Of course. It’s what friends do together, isn’t it?”

He relaxes, watching the awe and intimidation ease way under the stronger, more genuine emotions of fondness and excitement. “Yeah! I’ll bring it tomorrow. Will you be here tomorrow?”

Crowley nods, answering for them both. “We need a break. Think we’ll spend a few days at the cottage--as long as your mum doesn’t mind, Pepper.”

Pepper shrugs. “She won’t, most likely. Got held up on the changes to the kitchen ‘cos the construction blokes are waiting on parts. Can’t do anything in here until then.”

Crowley and Pepper end up catching up about the state of Noodle, drifting over to the snake’s home. Wensleydale and Brian volunteer to take their bikes down to the grocers and get everyone some lunch.

Adam and Aziraphale walk together into the backyard. Aziraphale watches Adam climb up the branches of the ash, his golden head popping up shorting from a window on the first floor of the treehouse. The boy peers down at him with a thoughtful expression.

“What should I call you, now?”

“Aziraphale is good enough, isn’t it?”

“Aziraphale is fine. I meant, what do you dominion over, exactly? We learned about Greek gods in school. They all were dominioning over things. God of war, goddess of love--that stuff. What’re you?”

Aziraphale can track Crowley’s movements in the cottage. Standing directly over Noodle’s enclosure, dropping a mouse in for her. Moving--probably with Pepper--into the cordoned off area where the new kitchen will be. Hovering near a window, peeking out at Aziraphale and Adam from behind the smudged glass.

If he actually _tries_ , really puts forth the effort, he can track Them, too. Adam in the tree above him. Pepper, walking the length of the new stove. Brian and Wensleydale, browsing the aisles at the grocers and spending far too long around the tank with the live lobsters in it. With a slightly harder push, he can feel Anathema and Newt in Jasmine cottage, Shadwell and Tracey in their flat in London. Charles, who delivers Aziraphale’s mail to the shop, driving down the road in his truck. Maria and Kyle, two of their favorite waitstaff from the Ritz at uni and at his parent’s bungalow, respectively. Janette in Inuvik, asleep in her bed, her daughter, Sandy, in the living room, surreptitiously watching telly with the volume way down. Karen--whose prayer he’d recently answered by healing her daughter Iris’s terrible cough--saying her rosary at her local village church. Farah playing soccer in the park, and Jin and his family eating a meal, and Amara and Rebecca together in their dormitory room, sweaty and tangled together on the bed, and Hakim and Mikhail and Jamar and Tim and Peter and Neil and Terry and--.

“Hey!” Adam says, sharply.

Aziraphale’s attention comes snapping back like a rubber band. He blinks, slowly. “So sorry,” he says, dazed. “What was I saying?”

“I asked what your dominion is. What do you serve?”

Aziraphale licks his dry lips and lifts a shoulder in a slight shrug. 

“Oh. People…?”

“People?”

“Yes.”

“What, all of ‘em?”

“If they’d have me. And even if they won’t, I suppose. Wouldn’t be very fair, otherwise, would it?”

“Aziraphale, god of people?”

Crowley’s feet are soft in the grass, but he purposefully makes a lot of noise as he approaches Aziraphale from behind, stepping into his natural position at the former angel’s side. 

“God of humanity,” Crowley corrects. “It’s got a double meaning, you see.”

Humanity, of humans. Humanity, of the benevolence, compassion, and and goodness that defines the human race at its best.

Aziraphale offers the demon a grin. “Yes,” he agrees, warmly. “Quite right.”

\--

Crowley pushes the plate of sandwiches closer to Aziraphale’s hand. The Them have already eaten their fill and now lounge around in the cottage’s living room, chattering amiably back and forth about how they’re going to--someday--save the planet from destruction. 

Aziraphale squeezes the demon’s hand briefly in thanks. For all his new divinity has changed him, it cannot restore on its own what Hell had taken. He still lacks the joy in simple pleasures he had left behind in the circle of gluttony. The taste of the bread, cheese, and turkey is like gritty ash on his tongue. He manages to swallow down two or three bites before pushing it aside. 

Crowley strokes his fingertips over the harsh hollow of Aziraphale’s cheek. “I won’t be satisfied myself until you’ve found that joy again,” he says, unhappily. “Six thousand years of bodies and none of them have ever been left starving like this. You’re not _you_ without those ‘indulgences’ you like so much.”

Aziraphale nuzzles into the demon’s palm, sighing with contentment when Crowley doesn’t pull away and, indeed, allows the breadth of his fingers to spread out over Aziraphale’s jaw, cradling it possessively. 

“We’ve achieved so much, so far,” Aziraphale reminds him. “This is--what did you say?--Drops in a bucket. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me,” Crowley argues. “Not a very good acolyte, can’t even keep my god in offerings and libations.” 

Aziraphale huffs a soft laugh. “My dear, you will never be a mere acolyte, to me. You’re an apostle, at the least.”

Crowley’s yellow eyes go bright and sharp behind his glasses. “Mmhm. Spreading the good word. New Pope, that’s me.”

In the old days, he would have expected this to get a rise out of the angel, setting off an amusingly righteous tangent that would go on for an hour at least.

Now, Aziraphale smiles his own wicked grin. “We could get you a very tall hat.”

\--

Aziraphale comes back to reality to find Adam Young staring at him with serious eyes. 

“‘Lo,” the boy greets.

“Hello,” Aziraphale says back, automatically. He looks around himself. He’s sitting cross-legged in the backyard. When he’d first sat down, the sun had been peeking over the horizon. Now, it’s high in the sky, well past noon. The former angel hums, thoughtfully, at the sight.

“Where’d you go?” Adam asks. He, too, is sitting cross-legged in the grass. He has a massive hole in the knee of his jeans and a long streak of something sticky down the front of his t-shirt. Aziraphale smiles at him, feeling warm inside as well as out in the combined light of Adam and the sun.

“Oh, nearly everywhere, I expect. I was answering prayers.”

“What kinda prayers?”

Aziraphale hums again. “Well, a young person in Georgia is having a rough time of it. They’re living with their father, now, and they’re not happy.”

“‘They’re?’” Adam echoes.

“They aren’t a girl or a boy. I don’t think they know that, yet. Right now, they go by Charlotte, and they’re hopelessly homesick for Montana--where their mother lives with her new boyfriend.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

Aziraphale nods. “I sent them a postcard booklet. As if it were a freebie in the mail...? The booklet comes from a gift shop in Helena--that’s in Montana--and it has lots of pictures of the places they remember visiting as a child. That’s good, isn’t it? That’s enough?”

“Maybe not _enough_ ,” Adam replies, carefully. “But s’good, I think. It’d help, if it was me.”

Aziraphale relaxes slightly. He’d worried.

“Karen’s daughter, Iris, is sick again. I keep treating what I can, but it’s not going to help in the longer term. She has a hereditary condition. Her immune system is compromised.”

Adam tilts his head thoughtfully. “Why don’t y’just get rid of the condition like you do the sicknesses?”

Aziraphale picks at his sleeve. It already has a hole in it, though, and when he sees the flash of gold of Crowley’s mark on his skin beneath it, he stops fretting the fabric with his fingernails. “Because in 1993, Iris is going to die of complications. And when she does, Karen will move away from the city she lives in back to her hometown, and there she will reconcile with her estranged sister, and the two of them will go on to start a charity that will, by 2020, provide enough funding to develop a treatment that will circumvent the symptoms of the condition and save thousands of future lives.”

Adam’s interested gaze goes sorrowful and very dark. “You could fix all that,” he argues. “You could make the condition disappear entirely, make it so no one ever has it now or ever again.”

Aziraphale shakes his head. “I can’t, Adam. It’s all connected. If I were to go into the genetic code of all of these people and eliminate the condition entirely, it would impact the entire course of human history in ways that I cannot even begin to imagine. Whole empires can crumble under the weight of such changes.”

“I’d do it,” Adam says, sharply. “I don’t care about any old empires. If they fell and I didn’t want them to, I’d just build them up again after. I’d fix everything that fell apart until it was all right and perfect and--.”

“Adam,” Aziraphale says, gently. The boy stops speaking, his gaze still hard and full of rage at the god sitting across from him. “It can never be perfect. There’s no such thing. You’d never manage it, and in the meantime, people would suffer even more than they already are.”

“But that means you gotta pick,” Adam replies, his rage giving way to a more general upset. “You’re just gonna pick? Who lives and who dies?”

“There is a reason they call it ‘playing God,’ dear boy.”

Adam pulls himself into a tight little bundle. “I don’t like that.”

“No,” Aziraphale replies, in a low whisper. “Neither do I.”

\--

“Come with me,” Crowley presses.

Aziraphale startles out of his haze. He’d been with Charlotte, encouraging them to ask their father for a ride to the barbershop. They want to cut their hair short, and they’re too afraid to ask. Charlotte’s father is not a terrible man--he’s only hamfisted and not sure how to handle suddenly caring for another human being. He’ll listen. But Charlotte has to reach out, first.

“Hey,” Crowley says, nudging Aziraphale with a foot. “Are you listening to me?”

Rebecca and Amara have been caught kissing by a teacher. Their parents have been notified, and Amara is nearly out of her mind with terror. Rebecca keeps trying to calm her girlfriend down, to give her support and be her courage, but Rebecca’s own parents know all about her sexuality and don’t care who she kisses--she has no frame of reference of what to do.

There’s a an old man in a town called--.

“ _Hey_ ,” Crowley says, sharply. He flops down in the grass in front of Aziraphale and sharply flicks the god between the eyes. “Stop that. Listen to me.”

Aziraphale blinks at him slowly. “Oh. Hello.”

“‘Oh, hello,” Crowley mocks softly, rolling his eyes. “Do you have any idea what day it is?”

Aziraphale blinks again. He had just been somewhere near Britain, hadn’t he? What day had it been there?

“It’s Thursday,” Crowley tells him. “What day did you sit down here?”

Aziraphale considers and then frowns. That can’t be right. “Monday?”

“Monday,” Crowley agrees. Aziraphale can feel his irritation loud and clear and also can readily sense the tight, frantic concern beating underneath it. “You haven’t _moved_ in days. It _rained_ last night. You’ll grow _mold_.”

Aziraphale blinks. His clothes _are_ a bit damp. He’d thought it was the dew.

“I was merely--.”

“Prayers. I get it. Listen. Have you considered that maybe you’re doing the wrong thing?”

“I--?”

“Aziraphale, you’ve been on earth as long as I have and seen almost all the same things. How many prayers have you seen God answer, Himself, directly?”

“The Lord works--.”

“--In mysterious ways. I know. But you know what that means? He doesn’t _meddle_. For all I know, He might be stomping on a few butterflies and putting some hurricans into action. Fine. But He’s not sitting on the back lawn for days at a time personally orchestrating the lives of His flock ‘til they suit Him, either. You’re too involved. You’re getting lost in the forest for the trees, and it isn’t helping anybody.”

“They--.”

“They’re fine! They’re fine. They live, they experience, they love, they hate, they die. They always have and always will and they can do that all well and dandy without you mucking it up.”

“‘No more messing about,” Aziraphale recalls, rather gloomily. 

“Come with me,” Crowley repeats. “I miss you. And you _promised_ me. ‘Never again will I fail to love you as you deserve.’ And I deserve to have my friend sit with me, warm and dry, _inside_.”

Aziraphale’s rubs idly at the mark along his arm. “I’m sorry, my dear.”

“S’fine,” Crowley replies, gruffly. “Can’t expect you to change overnight, can I? Do you think God was all sunshine and roses right after the flood? Hardly. Never did get the hang of softness-and-light at all, actually, ‘til that Jesus bit--and look how that turned out. Nevermind, don’t use Him as an example more than you can help it.”

Aziraphale allows the demon to tug him to his feet. He leans heavily on Crowley all the way to the living room, but his disciple doesn’t complain. At least, not about that. 

\--

Santa Muerta knocks at the door to his mind, and he cannot help but be pleased, just slightly, that she must ask his permission, now, to enter it.

“Hello,” he greets her, opening wide his mental door, letting into the dream. It’s a calm and simple affair, just a single weeping willow on the top of a tall, rounded hill. He’d been listening to the rustle of its leaves in his sleep.

Santa Muerta tilts her head at him in a grin. “You’re more wily than I had expected,” she says.

“Hardly,” Aziraphale murmurs back, with some affront. “I try to leave that sort of thing to Crowley.”

“Your apostle,” she comments. It’s the first sign she’s shone of so much as recognizing the demon exists. “Yes. Interesting. Unexpected.”

“You’re rattled--pardon the pun,” Aziraphale remarks. He pats the grass next to him in invitation. She does not sit. Instead, she looms over him and puts her bony fist between them. She opens her fingers and a cascade of feathers floats to the grassy ground. 

Aziraphale eyes them. “Do you expect me to make a deal, after all?”

“No,” she replies, cooly. “I have come to return what is not mine.”

“I gave them to you in good faith. My feathers for passage to Hell and temporarily restored ownership of my sword.”

“Yes. Consider this a return. No strings attached.”

“I was informed that you don’t provide returns or gifts without cost.”

Santa Muerta tilts her skull to glare down at him. “Gods do not barter with each other, Aziraphale. Those who try it always live in regret. I do not have time to regret, and I have no desire for you to send your pet snake after me, either. Take them and leave me be.”

Aziraphale gently collects each frayed end of primary from the stalks of grass. He glances up at where she still stands, breathless chest heaving with some raw emotion he cannot quite name.

“You truly wanted my subservience so much?”

Santa Muerta makes a soft, pained sound. She reaches out to touch him, as she often does, but pulls back--she does not dare touch another god without permission. “Not your submission,” she argues. “Your--your faith. Your faith is so beautiful, _angelus_. It is so full of love.”

Aziraphale considers this. “Yes. I suppose it rather was.”

“And is.”

“Is?”

Santa Muerta pulls her arms around herself. “You made a covenant, Aziraphale. You Spoke a promise into being--that you shall love and protect and reverie that which you have previously left unattended. Your acolyte and all of humankind.”

Aziraphale stares at her, uncomprehending.

“The faith you have reclaimed is yours. But it is not faith in God, any longer. And it is not _only_ yours.”

Aziraphale takes in a shaky breath. “That’s quite a lot to think about.”

“I will give you more to think about,” she says, with a hint of her old humor. “What you have done is not a tiny matter. Angels of the third sphere have noticed, and it won’t be long until their report reaches the ear of the Metatron, which is also the ear of God.”

“A warning? Does that, too, come freely, now?”

“Gods do not barter. But we’re not adverse to the exchange of favors. Maybe, some day, you will pay me a favor in kind.”

Aziraphale nods his head, but he’s wise enough not to make any verbal concessions.

Santa Muerta tilts her skull back in a knowing grin. 

“I am sad to have not made you mine,” she admits before she departs. “But I am glad to see what you chose, instead. You will make a fine god, Aziraphale, god of Humanity. I believe you will do very interesting things. And I greatly enjoy _interesting_.”

\--

Aziraphale wakes to find Crowley wrapped all around him, his head buried against Aziraphale’s neck, his grip tight as if afraid the god might otherwise vanish. They haven’t slept so closely in a long while, not since their talk about kisses.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale murmurs. Crowley’s eyes snape awake, glowing faintly in the dark. 

“I’m listening,” the demon says.

“I do want you to kiss me. Just so you know.”

Crowley laughs softly, burrowing back against the god’s neck. “Thought it was something serious,” he mumbles, already half asleep.

“It is serious!” Aziraphale argues.

“Gn. All right. Kiss you tomorrow, then. Let me sleep.”

Aziraphale laughs softly. He wraps his own arms around the thin, gangly form of his friend and follower and trails his fingers up against the ridges of the demon’s spine. “Goodnight, dear.”

\--

Aziraphale wakes up with a demon hovering anxiously over him, his brows drawn tight over his split-pupiled eyes. 

“Last night,” Crowley says, all in rush, as if he’s been holding it in a long time just waiting for Aziraphale to wake up, “Did you say I could kiss you?”

“ _I_ never said you couldn’t; _you_ were the one who--.”

Crowley’s lips are softer than he might have expected. Crowley pulls away and runs a decidedly forked tongue over his own lips. His eyes are more animal than typical, scales breaking out like a blush over his cheeks and down his neck. Aziraphale runs a fingertip over the scales at his nape in wonder.

“Oh.”

Crowley laughs at him, showing a brief flash of fangs. 

Aziraphale pulls him in, kissing him deeper, uncaring when his fangs pierce Aziraphale’s lip, making him bleed.

The former angel licks his lip thoughtfully. “Blood sacrifice,” he murmurs, in a low hum. Crowley snickers, licking the split in his flesh in turn. 

“How pagan,” Crowley says, fondly.

Aziraphale blows air into his face, causing Crowley--comically--to rear back, blinking thin membranes over his gold eyes. “Don’t be rude. We are what we are, now. There’s no shame in it.”

“Should have done it long ago,” Crowley says in careless agreement.

“No. It couldn’t have happened any sooner,” Aziraphale reminds him. Only a few years ago, Aziraphale’s belief in his place as righteous servant of the Lord had been unshakable, absolute. If anyone had told him then, before the arrival of the antichrist, before his journey in and of Hell, before his conversation, what lay ahead…?

“Preposterous,” Aziraphale huffs. 

Crowley rubs his thumb over the hole he’s left in Aziraphale’s bottom lip. He grins, teeth decidedly less sharp, eyes less uncanny, scales all but disappeared again into smooth skin. “You could just about put a stud through this.”

Aziraphale raises an eyebrow at him.

“Maybe not so pagan as all that, then, yet.”

\--

The days stretch before them and more and more it seems unlikely that the Tabor Cottage kitchen will ever get finished, what with them residing in it and being underfoot. So, they take renovations in their own hands. 

The Them ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ in appreciative delight to watch the two entities use their divine and demonic powers to put the place to rights.

“They should hire you on to one of them home an’ garden magazines,” Brian says from his perch on the newly installed counter. Brian is wearing a hard hat. All of Them had been magicked up a hard hat, but only Brian still had his on. (Even Wensleydale had determine the area to be danger free and had squeaked in faint delight when his hat had summarily disappeared into thin air at a mere snap of Crowley’s fingers).

“Hold still,” Pepper snaps at Crowley for the third time. She’s got his hands in her lap and is, with fixed determination, coloring his fingernails in with a black marker. 

“If you’re gonna be a demon, you ought to look more spooky,” Pepper had said, unhappily. “There’s one of the bigger boys what’s gonna graduate next year and he looks more like a demon than you. He’s got black fingernails.” And, so, there they are.

“Come to think of it, you don’t look much like a god, either,” Adam tells Aziraphale, rather slyly. 

Aziraphale raises his brows at the presumptuous young man. “And how does a god ‘look,’ exactly?” he challenges.

Which makes Adam and Them get caught up in an intense and animated argument about the topic for the next hour and a half. 

“Just...godly,” Adam determines, by the time the dust has settled. They’re all still in the kitchen, by that point, but the Them are sitting at one of the new dining tables, and Aziraphale is handing out bottles of soda while Crowley makes burgers and chips appear on plates out of the ether.

“Show them your trick,” Crowley suggests.

Aziraphale shoots him a look.

“Go on,” Crowley presses, with a suggestive flutter of his brows.

Aziraphale sighs, put upon. All of Them have their large, innocent eyes on him, now, and he cannot possibility resist.

He raises a hand up, mostly for show. “My blessings, then, on all of you.”

“Ooh! Give me a good one--I got a test in history tomorrow, and I haven’t studied!”

Pepper elbows Brian in the ribs with a sharp shushing hiss.

Aziraphale lowers his eyes and smiles softly at the interruption. It’s easy, touching all of them with just a brush of his good grace. The “trick” part is that doing so--if he allows it--makes him light up like a Christmas tree.

“ _Wow_ ,” Wensleydale breathes, agog.

“Hm. Well, I expect that’s all right, then,” Adam decrees.

“His wardrobe’s still naff, though,” Pepper says, as if she herself knows a thing about fashion excepting that trainers ought to never be anything but well broke in and oversized button ups are best for keeping the mud off so one does not get yelled out for tracking it in.

Everyone, including Crowley, looks at Aziraphale.

“Absolutely not,” the god snaps at them. “Eat your dinners.”

\--

Somehow, it turns into a food fight.

No one will claim the first volley, in the aftermath. Aziraphale suspects Crowley. Crowley suspects Brian. No one suspects Wensleydale, which is, of course, completely correct. Pepper suspects Adam because Adam always comes up with the best games.

Regardless, a chip goes flying across the air.

And then a whole burger, messy with catsup. And then it’s pandemonium that quickly splits into two teams. Adam, Pepper, and Crowley versus Aziraphale, Wensleydale, and Brian. Team demon up ends a whole dining table and uses it as a protective barrier. Team god takes the high ground, scrambling up onto the counter tops and throwing their missiles from above with all of the appropriate missile noises.

When the initial supplies run out, the demon starts to miracle up new materials--cakes with vibrant-colored frostings that will never wash out properly, delicate flakey pastries full to bursting with gloopy whipped cream, long pieces of sticky pastas that wrap around limbs like ropes. Aziraphale, not to be out done, simply conjures a large amount of lemon syllabub to fall right on top of the heads of the opposing side. Crowley sputters out their call for surrender after that, hissing sharply at the acidic citrus taste as the thick whip trails over his mouth. 

They all clamber together onto the slippery, sticky, colorful floor of the kitchen, clinging to each other for balance and laughing up a storm. Crowley touches each of Them one by one and miracles them tidy again. He goes to do the same for Aziraphale, but Aziraphale holds him off, a strange expression on his face.

“What?” Crowley asks. The Them look up at the duo, equally confused.

Hesitantly, Aziraphale touches his tongue again to the corner of his mouth--where he’d done just before, out of reflex to catch something sticky-sweet before it could fall to the floor. Then, he grins and runs a fingertip across Crowley’s chin, picking up a big piece of lemon syllabub and popping it in his own mouth. 

“Lemon,” he remarks, thoughtfully.

Crowley’s realization is a beautiful dawn of light across his features. “Not ash.”

“Not ash,” Aziraphale agrees and laughs as Crowley pulls their two sticky, slippery, messy bodies together and instigates a rather strange-tasting kiss.

“Gross,” Adam says, peaceably.

\--

The Them watch with wide eyes as Aziraphale eats his third cheeseburger in a row.

Crowley watches too, far more fond than alarmed. 

The kitchen and dining area are spotless, again, and everyone has finally settled down to actually enjoy their meal. Aziraphale, especially, enjoys his. 

Hamburgers and chips are hardly his preference, but there is time enough to rectify that.

Once the Them have been given a proper send off and seen safely home, the god and his demon curl up in the living room, close as sky and stars. “Try this one,” Crowley orders imperiously, popping another chocolate in Aziraphale’s mouth.

“Mmm, caramel. And a bit of coffee?”

“Yeah. This one?”

Aziraphale laughs. “Will you let me finish chewing them, first?”

“Maybe. I suppose. If I really must.” 

Crowley’s grin is easy and persistent; he hasn’t look so pleased in days.

“This truly makes you happy, doesn’t it?” Aziraphale asks, a bit wondering. 

“It makes _you_ happy, Angel. That always makes me happy, too.” Crowley refills Aziraphale’s wine glass and presses it insistently into his hand. It’s a very fine vintage, faintly peppery beyond the sweet fruitiness. 

Aziraphale expression goes soft. “I had wondered if you’d keep calling me that, now.” 

“I won’t, if you’d rather.”

“No. Please, do. I like it. I always have.”

Crowley nods, pressing a dark piece of chocolate against his lips in reply. “This one,” he repeats.

Aziraphale huffs softly and obligingly takes the candy into his lips with his tongue.

\--

“Don’t see what London’s got that Tadfield hasn’t,” Pepper says, grumpily. 

“Quite a lot, actually,” Wensleydale says, brightly, “In fact there’s--.”

“She doesn’t mean _literally_ ,” Brian intercedes. 

“They’ve spent ages in London. Years and years. S’home, for them. That’s all right, isn’t it?”

“ _Tadfield_ is home,” Pepper snaps, bristling. She’s been sharp as knives all morning, and no one knows how to shake her out of it. 

Aziraphale comes up behind the girl and lays a dark hand on her own dark cheek. They could almost be family, if you could put aside the currently ethereal glow of the former’s skin. 

“Don’t you bless me,” Pepper snaps at him, pulling out of his reach. 

Aziraphale kneels so that he is eye-to-eye with her. He keeps his hand resting gently on her shoulder. “We’ll visit often,” he promises. “Not just to make plans and things. Proper visits with card games and cakes.”

“In the meantime,” Crowley adds, speaking to all of them, “You’ve got work to do, don’t you? Start spreading the word to your peers and the like. Start preparing them for what’s ahead.”

“We’re just kids,” Pepper grouses. She’s never been argumentative on such a point before. Pepper longs to stick it to The Man, in fact, especially if The Man is Satan and God and their acquired legions. “What are we supposed to do about it?”

“Just remind them they are powerful,” Aziraphale reminds her. “Remind them that they have imagination and innovation and no small amount of persistence. Heaven and Hell can’t hold a candle to that. They can’t change, not like you lot. They can’t adapt.”

“And they can’t rationalize. And they can’t see in proper shades of grey. Remind them that they are capable of terrible good and terrific bad and that they don’t have to do too much of either, as a matter of fact.” Crowley tugs lightly at the collar of Aziraphale’s jacket. “We should go, Angel.”

Aziraphale ignores him for a moment, his searching eyes on Pepper, instead. “What’s got you so worried, dear?” he presses. “What’s wrong?”

Pepper’s usually determined eyes are soft and troubled as any child’s might be, with due cause. “Every time we see you, something’s different,” she says, all in a rush. “What about next time? What if you come back and you’re all changed again? What if some day you come back and you’re _so_ different that you don’t--.”

Aziraphale’s skin glows again, though he doesn’t seem to be doing anything, especially. His eyes light up, too, like tiny flames. “I now establish my covenant with you. I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind on this planet. No matter what might change in ourselves or in the world, no matter what obstacles arise and empires may fall. Pippin “Pepper” Galadriel Moonchild Peterson, we will _always_ call you friend, companion, and piece of our own souls.” 

Aziraphales clears his throat softly, looking away. “All right?” he asks, embarrassed. 

Pepper stares at him with wide eyes as all the light flows out of him and he’s just Aziraphale again. Slowly, she loops her arms around the grown-up’s neck and gives him a brief, hard, choking squeeze.

“When the End Times come,” she tells him, seriously, “you an’ Adam’ve got my vote.”

Aziraphale smiles and pats her cheek. “Thank you. Very much.”


	7. Finale: You’re My Best Friend - London

Peace comes on him, well, peacefully. So much so that he barely notices its arrival, wouldn’t at all except for the close, sharp way Crowley looks at him and then looks away, a knowing smirk on his lips.

“What?” Aziraphale asks. He looks askance at the demon and then turns his attention back to the large tome on his desk. 

They’re spending the day in the bookshop. Aziraphale has heaps of inventory to sort through, and Crowley is simply pleased to linger and watch the angel lose himself--with genuine enjoyment--in the work. 

“You’re content, that’s all.”

“Complete, you mean.”

“Both.”

They share a long look and then return to their separate pastimes in a comfortable silence.

\--

Within a year, they find themselves in a comfortable routine. Largely, they spend their days in each other’s company. The walk through St. James’s Park, dine together once or twice, and spend long hours in conversation, debating everything from the nature of morality in their new positions (what are ‘good and evil’ as defined by the god of humanity?) to how much sugar in a black tea is “too much.”

In between, Crowley slinks off to spend some time along among his plants and Aziraphale turns to his collection and the tending of it. 

At night, they sleep in a tangled heap in the middle of Crowley’s soft, overlarge bed. 

Time spent enjoying the simple pleasures of rich food and copious wine allows Aziraphale’s body to relax into the reality of being properly nourished once more. He fills out to his old proportions and then some, a fact in which Crowley delights, earnestly and vocally until Aziraphale is left blushing and baffled with the demon’s warm regard.

Sometimes, they drift from their old, familiar tracks and indulge in pleasures new and strange and altogether enticing. When Aziraphale pulls Crowley toward him, from time to time, the demon’s aspect goes abruptly beastial, leaving him fanged and sprinkled with a covering of tiny, dense plates. Aziraphale’s eyes, in turn, will light with an inner fire and his skin will radiate an otherworldly glow. 

They take these shapes in their dream walking, Aziraphale pulling Crowley along as he travels among the minds of humanity, granting them small petitions and generally making himself and his teachings known.

Crowley is the first to find a trace that their efforts are not in vain. 

It’s seven years since Aziraphale had followed a demon into Hell to win him back, by that point. Six years since the angel ascended to become a god and defend humanity on their own terrain. Five years since he and Crowley had started to spread word of his teachings, his purpose. Five years since they’d started to plants seeds in the minds of humankind about the horrors that are to come and what part each human might play to control the course of their own destinies. 

And then Crowley finds a website.

“It’s in something called a webring,” Crowley explains, “all about shared dreaming. It looks like a lot of them were talking on a...forum? And then we got mentioned. They pulled various reports from different people together and then, ta-da, website.” Aziraphale leans over Crowley’s shoulder, frowning at the screen. The page has a grainy image of the night sky as its background with big blocks of blue all across. All the font is in white and looks like something out of a comic book (Aziraphale, by and large, knows nothing of comic books, but he is a purveyor of works on typographical evolutions throughout history, and his more recent acquisitions on the subject cover comic books in depth). “I can’t read this at all.”

Crowley snorts. “Yeah, not exactly aesthetically pleasing, is it? Look, though, they’ve got art.”

Crowley clicks a blue link and scrolls down the screen.

“There’s nothing there.”

“You have to wait for it to load.”

Aziraphale hums. “How _long_ do you have to wait for it--oh, there it is.”

The first looks to be the rendering of an amatuer. Even so, Aziraphale can recognize himself and the demon in the work. Himself, dark and gleaming like polished bronze. Crowley, golden eyed and spotted with scales, his tongue stuck out and forked. 

“They even got your bow tie all right--tartan and awful,” Crowley says, brightly.

The next one is far more realistically done, so much so that Crowley whistles lowly between his teeth. “What did they do to my wings, though?”

“Mhm, they made them scaly. Like a wyvern’s. I don’t dislike them.”

“Well, I do. It’s going to mislead someone. Next thing you know, all the mythology will start acting like I’m some sort of transmogrified dragon.” 

“Seems like getting ahead of yourself, a bit, doesn’t it?”

Crowley shoots him a look. “Oh, yeah?” he asks, scrolling purposefully past a few more drawings to the bottom of the page. “ _That_ is a hits counter. It counts how many times a page has been viewed. This website has a publication date of two weeks ago. Look how many hits since.”

Aziraphale plucks nervously at his sleeve. Crowley leans his head purposefully back, pinning the god’s arm to his torso to prevent him from doing it. 

The counter says 1,342.

“Some of those are surely duplicates. I mean, one of them is even ours, isn’t it?”

With a snort, Crowley refreshes the page. They wait a long while for it to load and then Crowley scrolls down the length of the page again.

1,586.

“It’s catching on. And it’d catch on even more if we started directing them to this URL when we stop in and say hello.”

“Why would we do _that_?”

“Because, this website is connected to a forum. And people on forums talk to each other. And people who are talking to each other are easier to talk to _en masse_. And people whom you talk to _en masse_ can be convinced to form a revolution.”

Aziraphale swallows thickly. “I think you might have skipped over a few steps,” he manages, weakly.

“Aziraphale. You’re a god. You need a following. These people--they need to know what’s going to happen. They need to be prepared. There’s only so much dream walking we can do a night, and even then it’s hard to say if they’re really _listening_. But this? This is the future. This is the hot thing. This could reach them in a way we cannot.”

Crowley turns in his seat and grips Aziraphale’s hands in his own. “I’ll handle the technology. But I need you to play up the part, give them something to believe in. You can do that, right?”

“I don’t want them to, to...I don’t want _followers_. I just wanted them to have someone in their corner! Crowley, I am hardly prepared to--.”

“--You made a choice. Now, you have to live with it. I’m sorry, I can’t give you any better advice than that. Sometimes, we find ourselves in circumstances in which we are forced to change the entire progression of reality. And then we keep soldiering on.”

Aziraphale strokes his hand through Crowley’s hair, both of them lost in memories of an apple tree and a Garden and the light of a flaming sword walking away. 

“You’re right,” Aziraphale concedes. “Do what you must. I’ll go take a nap and see whom I can catch. It’s nighttime in America about now, isn’t it?”

Crowley squeezes his hand before he goes. “Don’t forget to eat a snack, first,” he says, distractedly, his attention already on miracling the computer into giving away its arcane secrets.

\--

There’s two of them in the room, in different dreams. Aziraphale tugs each dreamscape into his hands, smooshing them up into one. 

“Hey!” the woman says in surprise. She’d been dreaming about snorkeling.

“Barbara?” her husband asks, confused. He’d been dreaming about a pie-eating contest at the Iowa State Fair.

“Hello,” Aziraphale greets them. It always feels strange, doing this without Crowley. “My name is Aziraphale. And I’ve come here tonight to speak with you about the End of Days.”

\--

Within a week, the webpage has over one-hundred thousand hits and climbing. A new link appears on the landing page that leads to a forum specifically created to talk about the “God of Humanity Dream Experience.” Crowley contacts the webmaven and summarily charms his way into a position as moderator of the boards.

“Ha, there’s another thread wanting to speculate about ‘the nature of the relationship between Aziraphale and his servant’,” Crowley hoots. 

Aziraphale rolls his eyes fondly and goes back to reading his book. “Just tell me if any more come up about conversion concerns.”

“You don’t have to swan in and handle those yourself, you know. I’ve got it covered. I know the party line. ‘Multiple dreamers have reported Aziraphale’s stance on this, please direct your attention to the F.A.Q.’”

“I don’t want anyone terrified for the state of their immortal souls,” Aziraphale replies, testily. They’ve had this argument many times, as of late. “No one owes me their fealty. I am not a jealous god. I just want--.”

“I _know_ , Angel,” Crowley calls back. “Oh, hey, this one is Kimmy’s mom in Michigan. She wants to know if you’ll come back again and see Kimmy tonight because the kid wrote you a song and she wants to share it.”

Aziraphale’s lips twitch into a smile. “Ask her to share the lyrics with the group.” He pauses. “I’ll stop in on Kimmy tomorrow. Right now, I’d best go buzz through Australia again.”

“Hold on a moment, I’ll go with you. The last time you tried to go at it alone, they made you cry.”

“I wasn’t _crying_.”

“They hurt your feelings,” Crowley says, with a shrug. His face goes sharp and scaled, his fangs long and hungry looking. “That’s not a fair go.”

\--

After a year, the hit counter exceeds its six-digit cap and Crowley has to miracle the code to make it work again. 

The forum boasts a member list of half a million accounts (though, thankfully, only a few thousand are regularly active; Crowley would self-destruct having to moderate much more than that between himself and the two other full-time mods, and he, unlike the other two, cheats by being magical and not _technically_ having to stop for naps or potty breaks).

“Carol’s plane lands tomorrow and Avery thinks his bus ought to be in a bit after ten tonight. I told him I’d pick him up myself, drop him off at the hotel. Carol’s going to take a taxi. The rest of the lot are already there, sounds like.”

‘The lot’ are the two other forum mods (Rebecca, a student whom Aziraphale used to hyperfixate on--Crowley’s words, not Aziraphale’s--in his early god days and Quinton, an older man from London who was one of the first to receive them in a dream) and several other Big Name Followers of the forum. All told, they’ll see a group of seventeen.

“Could make it a holy number for you, seventeen,” Crowley jokes. In truth, they’d hoped for more, but the cost and logistics of international travel had stymied most of their more rampant forum users. 

“You’re forgetting the five who want to use the telephone.”

“Oh, right, the conference call. I need to call the hotel back. I’ve no idea how that works, and I probably ought not tip our hand right out the gate by miracling the damn thing into submission.”

“Do we know when the Them will arrive?”

“Soon, I should think. Adam called when they got on the train.”

Aziraphale smiles. They’ve visited the Them regularly in Tadfield for years, but this will be the first time that the children--or young adults, really, now; the lot of them are old enough to go on to uni this season--will come to see them in London. “Good.”

“Wensleydale’s going to talk your ear off the moment they land, you know. Have you seen his latest e-mailed progress report on the newest batch of caterpillars? He wants to take them to university with him. Suspect his residence hall supervisor will have a field day.”

“I haven’t, yet. I’ll get to it.”

Crowley frowns, looking up from the day planner in his lap.

“All right?”

Aziraphale is sitting in a cross-legged position on a floor cushion they’d specifically set up for the purpose of his so-called “meditations” years before. Something about sitting upright on a flat surface makes Aziraphale feel more connected to the larger Universe. Right now, though, he’s not meant to be chasing petitioners or listening to prayers. The god rubs a hand over his eyes. “It’s all becoming rather real.”

“It’s been real since we first grabbed onto Quinton’s dream about the fishing boat and gave him a revelation. You know that.”

Aziraphale nods, but his lips remain pursed, expression one of discomfort. 

“It could be all for nothing. We could be playing Chicken Little, waiting for a skyfall that will never occur.”

“We aren’t. And so what if we were? No one is being harmed, Angel. They like us. Trust us. They want to learn, and they want to help.”

“You realize this is conscription. We’re making warriors of common people.”

Crowley sighs. He types something rapidly into the text box on the computer, puts his day planner aside near the keyboard, and comes to sit on the floor across from his god. “We won’t need warriors at all, if this goes right. We just have to show the armies of Heaven and Hell we mean business, right?”

The demon kisses Aziraphale’s lips in a soft peck and rests their foreheads together, a hand tangling itself in the tight curls of Aziraphale’s hair. “Let me build you nations, baby, and all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you.”

Aziraphale closes his eyes. “It could be generations. Another six thousand years.”

Crowley makes a soft, amused sound. “Just imagine how much faster the dial-up will be by then.”


	8. Encore: Another One Bites the Dust - The 2nd End of the World

They get a scare at the turn of the new millennium. (Later on, Crowley takes to calling it “the dry run,” and they use it as a training scenario for the newcomers for years until the younger ones start clucking about “lack of authenticity,” at which point all the training materials take a drastic shift into the territory of “no, young person, the apocalypse is _not_ the lesser of two evils, but, yes, you’re quite right, the advent of reality shows _should_ probably be on the list of Signs and Portents, thank you.”)

They perk their ears up in 2012, when ancient calendars threaten the sanctity of the modern era by having the _nerve_ to stop keeping track of the days. Though nothing comes of it, in the end, their vigilance isn’t wasted as that’s the year Heaven lays down their gauntlet, so to speak, right at Aziraphale’s feet.

It goes all over their social media sites (they moved away from the original forum in bits and pieces, bouncing around a few different hosts until finally giving it up in the early aughts. MySpace had proven a terrible meeting place, Facebook even worse, but Twitter and Tumblr, once adopted, really hold their own, even if it is mostly call outs and memes. Everything else--the serious conversations among their followers--they shift over to WhatsApp in 2010--Crowley declares it’s better for them to go mobile, anyway, and, besides, the app has cleaner international access). 

**Charly Dean** @enbyapostle

Jsyk #TeamHumanity angel Gabriel appeared at HQ last nite. Deets 2 follow. Nbdy hurt and Crwly says Gabriel can eat dick LOL

 **AJ Crowley** @snekpope69

#TeamHumanity Official 2 follow. Didn’t, as sm have slandered, tell G. to eat a dick. Smthg worse. Az won’t let me say on the Internet. 

**AJ Crowley**

@snekpope69

Whose dick do /I/ have to eat to make Twitter give bigger character limit? Had to edit prvs. post 4x to make small. FCK off.

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

Heaven made unannounced visit @ 10:25 PM @ London HQ. Short version: Az got a wrist slap. Az slapped back. Pics to follow. ;) 

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

[link to a flikr account image URL]

[photo is obviously taken from a cell phone at a bad angle; Aziraphale stands in the middle of the HQ apartment, facing camera. Between he and the photographer is a male-appearing figure in a gray suit with dark hair. Aziraphale is in full “god mode” with glowing skin and flaming eyes. Aziraphale is caught mid disapproving scowl. The caption on the photo reads “Mtg. with Gabriel, the Archangel. Gabriel says “stop giving the humans ideas and be a good angel!”. Aziraphale says “I believe you missed the memo re: the ‘angel’ thing” (LOL) - Crowley]

**Charly Dean**

@enbyapostle @snekpope69 LOL old man can’t use abbreviations.

 **A J Crowley** @snekpope69

@enbyapostle 1. Look who’s talking re: old. The Youths are not fooled by ur txt spk, bruv. 2. Used to big ass forum space! Not my fault.

**Adam Young**

@secondofhisname

You know what’s gr8? Starting one’s day w ppl making lol over a literal call to war. Nobody else is worried, eh? @snekpope69 @teamhumanityofficial

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

@secondofhisname Everything is quite all right, dear boy et al. 

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

Shook my feathers a bit and he went off. 

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

Still have a few years, yet, by our reckoning. 2012 scare continues to be a hoax and of no concern. 

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

Even so, #TeamHumanity, please expect a Skype call meeting in the next few days.

**Charly Dean**

@enbyapostle 

@teamhumanityofficial Aziraphale, we love you, but lrn to abbreviate!!!! #apocalypsespam

**A J Crowley**

@snekpope69

@enbyapostle Don’t you mean #Spamageddon ? ;)

\--

Their main HQ in London is a large converted brownstone with two stories. The main floor houses the public space--what Crowley wryly calls the “temple”--and the upper their living space. The first story is open and industrial, good for hosting face-to-face meetings and the odd social function. The second story is a labor of love years in the making, the difficult mish-mashing of tastes of two beings with vastly different perceptions and desires. Most of their followers who see the place end up calling it “suitable,” and Aziraphale, at least, takes it as a compliment. 

It’s _theirs_ , which is good enough, even if they do get into minor rows over the color of the walls, from time to time. 

Aziraphale pads into the kitchen with a wide, cracking yawn and sits down at the kitchen table. Crowley gamely slides him over a platter of french toast and a cup of sweet coffee and a tablet (Aziraphale sighs at the tablet, without fail, every morning and has sighed at it and every laptop, mobile, and otherwise the demon has handed him since the start--he’s no raw hand at technology, anymore. He can’t be. But he doesn’t like it.)

“What’s the highlights?”

“The usual. Anathema Device sent me a text this morning. All the oracles are keeping up the same refrain; something is coming. Adam and Them are scattered about, but Adam assures me they could assemble anywhere we see fit within twenty-four hours. Charly wants to call you later today; sie thinks sie’s found an agent of Hell in Georgia and sie wants to know what to do with it--don’t look at me, I didn’t ask. If we’re lucky, sie didn’t do something crazy like tie a demon up in hir basement.”

It’s 2020, and sometime during the course of the year, the world is going to try and end.

Mostly, from what Aziraphale can see scrolling through their notes and mentions and e-mails, people are making memes about it. 

“Appointment with the BBC is still on the books, I take it?” Aziraphale asks. It will be their fifteenth appearance on a national news program since the scare in 2000. He’s gotten used to the wave of attention, but it’s never exactly easy. The protestors alone are a nightmare, even if he and Crowley can just teleport right past their mobbing masses.

“Yeah.”

Crowley frowns, pushing the breakfast plate so that it bumps up against Aziraphale’s hand. “Shouldn’t have given you the tablet right off,” he mutters to himself. “Hey. This is fine. If anything it’s a relief, isn’t it? Whatever is going to happen, it’s going to happen soon. And then it’ll be done, one way or the other.”

Azirphale sips his coffee and obligingly takes a large bite of the miracled french toast. He swallows thickly before answering. “‘One way or the other.’ Honestly, I hope you aren’t talking like that around the team.”

Crowley lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “They know there’s no guarantees.”

Aziraphale starts to respond to him but his distracted by the tablet screen. He smiles wryly. “That old photo of myself and Gabriel is floating around again.”

Crowley peers at the tablet upside down. He grins. “See? That’s hope eternal, springing there. They don’t give a fig what Heaven or Hell are bringing, Az. They know you’ll do them right.”

\--

“Really starting to feel like apocalypse aversion is a young man’s game,” Adam Young complains. His words are harried, but he looks as kempt and handsome as always. The natural charisma of the antichrist cannot be beat, even by the musings of a tired, middle-age man. 

Pepper clucks disapprovingly at her screen, her eyes darting to the webcam so as to make brief eye contact with her friend. She’s scrunched up in her computer chair, a notebook resting on her knees. For the past two hours, they’ve been editing Aziraphale’s phone tree, trying to make sure that no one vital falls off the radar. The Team Humanity organization has been running full speed ahead since 1997--some of its older members, including one of the original forum’s moderators--have died. Most have left their legacy to family or friends, but those shifts don’t always happen cleanly. So far, Pepper has crossed out a lot of dead e-mail addresses and dismantled landline numbers. 

“You don’t stand a chance in the battle if you can’t handle a little bit of paperwork,” she tells him, primly.

Adam makes a face. “Don’t let Aziraphale hear you use the ‘b-word’. You know how he feels about this coming to blows.”

“I do know. And I know how Mr. C feels about how Az feels about it. Whether our dear, sweet god of humanity likes or not, I’m bringing something sharp and pointy or possibly explosive, when the time comes.”

Adam’s face does not go away. “We don’t stand a chance in an all-out war.”

Pepper ignores this statement with all the fervor of someone who very much doesn’t want to talk about a difficult topic. “I think this one has a daughter somewhere. I’m sending you the info in the chat--see if you can find her on Google.”

\--

Gabriel the archangel appears again in the spring of the year.

Aziraphale is in St. James’s Park, as are quite a lot of human people. The god gazes thoughtfully at the angel and slowly shifts into what the team jokingly calls his “god mode”--three sets of wings (white feathered, mostly, with a few primaries in rainbow jewel tones) spread out across the sky, skin emitting a faint glow, sleeves rolling up to display the gold scales of the snake tattoo winding up his arm and disappearing over his heart. His eyes burn with remnants of the flame that reformed him, and when he smiles they crinkle in a manner disconcertingly kind. “Hello, Gabriel.”

Aziraphale throws out his senses to cover the borders of the park. Most of the picnickers and the like gather themselves up into small, protective groups, slowly moving out of the radius of the two entities. Children are shoo’ed into the care of determined-faced strangers. A few of the more physically limited go along with them, led by self-assigned leaders who know the fastest way out of the park and into the streets. At least a dozen or so humans linger behind. Aziraphale knows they are at a reasonable distance from where he and Gabriel stand, but they remain close enough to the action to take pictures and video with their phones. Aziraphale hones in on Twitter for a moment and mentally sends out a tweet.

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial Angel Gabriel in St. James’s Park. Stay away unless designated #TeamHuman agent. TY, dears.

The tweet is barely published before Crowley cracks into existence at his side. 

Gabriel tilts his head back appraisingly in response. “Still consorting with demons, then.”

Aziraphale casts a sidelong glance at Crowley and then looks back to Gabriel with a lift of his shoulder. “I don’t believe he’s _just_ a demon, anymore.”

“We definitely consort, though,” Crowley agrees, brightly.

Aziraphale is certain he hears one of their social media agents snicker from far too nearby. He finds the culprit and with a bit of power gently nudges her back a good four feet, ignoring her wail of “but the audio quality!”

Gabriel’s eyes flicker to the sound. Aziraphale clears his throat, drawing that attention back.

“Good morning, Gabriel,” he says, firmly. “What can we do for you today?”

Gabriel’s lips twitch into something that cannot be called a sneer, but only because angels shouldn’t make such faces.

“You can give in and die, for a start,” he intones, flatly. “I’ve been sent in my role as Heavenly messenger. The forces of Heaven and Hell will arrive within the next twenty-four hours. We’ll take all your major cities and then the rest of the world. Should have everything razed and over with by, eh, Sunday? Seems fair. Took seven days to build it, might as well take two or three to--.”

Crowley throws out his wings abruptly. (An agent is clearly heard to cheer a loud “Fuck yeah, man!” behind them). The demon had been right about the burden of the mythology. His wings remain bird-shaped and mostly feathered, but the skin beneath is littered with pearlescent scales that catch the light and make them shine in Aziraphale’s glow. His eyes go decidedly less human, his skin shimmers with dense scales around his cheekbones and brows and down his neck. (Aziraphale has explored the reach of those scales thoroughly; they stretch, hard as armor plating, down the demon’s chest, torso, and back, protecting his most vulnerable flesh. And they’re quite lovely, too, being dark and prone to catch rainbow colors in the light.)

“Threat received,” Crowley says in a loud hiss, his tongue flickering. “Go away.”

Gabriel raises his eye brows at this display. He looks at Aziraphale. “Can’t you keep your pet on a tighter leash?”

Aziraphale’s flaming eyes glow hot. A few of the human agents behind them gasp, stepping noisily back in the grass. The god slides into an old, old, barely remembered battle stance. No flaming sword appears in his hand--that belongs to War, again, now--but something far more deadly shimmers in the air around him. “We’ve heard your message. We’ll be ready.”

Gabriel tilts his head as if confused. “Ready to die quietly?”

“Ready to kick your ass!” an agent calls from the back with a whoop. Crowley barely resists the urge to face palm. (If he does, they’ll just take a photo of it and make a new meme.)

“Humanity has free will, Gabriel,” Aziraphale reminds the angel, almost gently, as if Gabriel is an errant child who has forgotten his lessons. “They have cunning and innovation and a capacity for imagination that is, truly, awe inspiring. And they have no wish, now or ever, to simply lie down and die. I’m telling you this as a courtesy to a being that was once my kin and brother: Prepare for a fight. They will not go easily on you.”

Gabriel looks around. His eyes unerringly find every single human agent, even those who have worked hard to stay out of sight. His smile is cold and unfeeling. He spreads his hands.

Aziraphale can feel the miracle building in the seconds before it is manifested. He shouts out a wordless cry and, in a rustle of wings and a scattering of light, grabs Gabriel by the collar of his fine button up and lifts him high, high into the air. The angel’s hands stay rigid and impotent at his sides. He stares down at the god, an entirely new expression (one of burgeoning terror) across his features. 

“Crowley, remove the humans. A mile, at least. Do you have enough in you for a--?”

“I’m on it, Angel.”

Abruptly, Crowley and all the collected humans in and around St. James’s disappear. Aziraphale doesn’t sense if they reappear or where, though he knows they must. And if Aziraphale can’t sense the humans’ new position, neither can Gabriel. Crowley’s power remains based on the one in whom he lays his trust--he miracles using Aziraphale’s own might. That said, as a channel, he won’t be able to hide the humans for long. 

Aziraphale braces his feet in the ground and tightens the hold of his fist around the angel’s collar, making it so tight at Gabriel gives a faint wheeze. “I have made a covenant,” the god tells him, tone oddly casual. “For nearly thirty years, now, I have kept that bargain. I have given humanity my regard, my protection, my attention, and my love. In return, they have given me their allegiance. And a few have even, quite kindly, given me their belief. Do you know what belief does, Gabriel, to a being like me?” 

The god’s flaming eyes glow brighter and take on an inhuman aspect, as if entire galaxies rest in the pupils. The faint shimmer along his skin takes on a similar aspect, creating constellations across the dark expanse of his flesh from head to toe. He tilts his head and rolls his neck and offers the angel a toothy grin. Three of his teeth gleam golden, and something about his aspect goes feral and distinctly eldritch, pagan, wild. His wings expand as if to shelter the whole of the world while remaining at their usual mass. His eyes are portals to other realities. The curve of his smile is the edge so sharp it may well cut. He is a shifting sensation of color and power and, most intensely, a burning sense of protective love. The air around them fills with the rackus, ethereal music of the Universe itself. 

Gabriel has stood, if rarely and briefly, at the throne of God. He recognizes, if dimly, the ilk of what it is that he feels, hears, and sees. The angel starts to tremble in terrible fear. His fine suit melts away into a simple smock. His wings unfurl weakly from his back, drooping down to the ground below his suspended, bared feet. Tears well in his eyes and drip, unheeded, down his cheeks in rivets. “Please,” he grounds out, “Mercy.”

Aziraphale blinks, and all of his might folds itself away into a tiny, secret place deep inside of his essence. He lowers the cowering, submissive angel to the grassy ground. Gabriel cannot regain his footing and allows himself to simply fold, boneless, to the earth. 

“Humanity can imagine _anything_ , you know. Terrible devastation, wondrous creation. They can build worlds the likes of which even God would find impressive and unique in their sheer beauty and complexity. Humanity has made me what I am, Gabriel. Just imagine--though I know it’s difficult for angels and demons to do so, my dear boy--what they might make of the likes of you.”

Gabriel slowly stands. His knees betray him, but Aziraphale reaches out a hand and supports the trembling entity with no effort at all. Gabriel cannot meet his gaze. He looks away and down, out across the park.

“I-I’ll be reporting this,” he says, meekly.

“Of course you will,” Aziraphale agrees. “It’s your job, after all.”

Gabriel swallows thickly, managing to spare a brief glance the god’s way and back again. While Aziraphale’s true nature is no longer visible, the angel can see the after image burned into his mind. “It’s...it wasn’t personal.”

Aziraphale laughs. “No. I don’t suppose so. Not to _your_ lot, anyway. But it is, to me.”

Gabriel manages a nod. Slowly, the angel lifts his wings, and he disappears from sight.

\--

Aziraphale leans against a tree in the seconds after and fights for breath.

All at once, the humans and Crowley appear on his internal radar again. Crowley appears next to him a minute later, already speaking. “Sent them all home. Told them to get the videos and photos up ASAP, as usual, and make sure to tag our--Angel?”

Aziraphale slides down the length of the tree. It’s bark catches at his clothes and scrapes against the flesh of his back, but he doesn’t care. 

“All right,” Crowley whispers. He already has his arms around the god as much as he can with Aziraphale all folded up as he is. The demon rubs soothing circles into Aziraphale’s skin. “Hey, it’s fine. It’s absolutely fine. He’s gone and no one got hurt. No one got hurt, right? What happened?”

Aziraphale, for just a moment, lets Crowley see what he’d revealed to Gabriel moments before. Crowley pulls back slightly, appraising him. “Mhm, interesting.”

Aziraphale, breathing a bit easier now, just stares at him. Crowley shrugs.

“That kind of razzle-dazzle show might spook an angel, Angel, but no self-respecting _demon_ is going to flinch at a smattering of Lovecraftian horror.” Crowley pauses, considering. “Actually, this particular demon thinks it’s rather nice.”

“Nice?” Aziraphale asks, voice high.

Crowley’s grin is predatory. “Sexy?”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes, dropping his true aspect with the motion. Crowley gives the god’s forearms a light squeeze. 

“I wouldn’t go showing that to the humans any time soon,” the demon says, slowly. “Not that I don’t think they’d come around, but, well, best not to give any of the more reactionary of the international press more to throw at us, eh?”

Aziraphale nods. For all that he is only what humanity has made of him, humans are often uncomfortable when faced with the truth of their own creations. 

“C’mon, then. We’ll have heaps to sort through after all that. Gotta make sure the moderators are keeping the rumor mill at bay, for one. Probably can’t keep the real word from getting out, but I’d like to get ahead of it. You up for a brief live broadcast?”

Aziraphale sighs. “I suppose I must, mustn’t I?”

Crowley pats his arm. “I think we have time to let you drink a cup of tea, first.”

\--

Aziraphale hates speaking in front of the cameras, even if just the small one in Crowley’s phone. They keep his message short and to the point yet not without a clear overlay of hope. Many of Team Humanity’s more active members have been waiting for this their whole lives. For some, the caution has been multi-generational, passed from parent to child. Even those humans across the world who are not active participants in the organization know their message. Some push back against it and have since its inception; Aziraphale doesn’t mind that--it’s all part and parcel of free will. Regardless of any individual person’s association with Team Humanity, Aziraphale’s stance is clear: Everyone will be protected by his influence, no one will suffer under his care. 

Aziraphale’s phone lights up with multiple messages in the hours that follow the release of his (currently trending) video. He responds in a perfunctory manner to most, providing assurances and checking up on the details of what is to come, making sure every person knows their place. 

There’s one message he cannot afford to treat so lightly. 

**Adam Young**

Call me.

And he does.

\--

“Heard somebody got hold of a demon agent, recently. That true?”

“Charly. Yes, we confirmed it. Crowley gave hir a message to pass along and then instructed hir to send the demon back to his supervisors, I think. We haven’t heard anything from their side since. Quite frankly, they’ve been rather timid; Crowley thinks that they’re spooked by my successful passage through Hell, if nothing else.”

“And Heaven?”

“Gabriel left in rather a state,” Aziraphale replies, mildly. “I don’t believe we’ll see anything of Heaven’s forces until the appointed hour is at hand.”

“What is it, now?”

Aziraphale glances at the clock. “Just over eleven hours. Are you and Them on your way?”

“I’m on my way to you. Wensleydale decided to try his luck in Paris. Brian is headed to Washington D.C.”

“And Pepper?”

A pause. “Pep isn’t coming.”

Aziraphale draws in a sharp breath. His fist clenches and unclenches at his side. He hasn’t indulged in his anxious picking tic in years, but the old impulse suddenly overwhelms him. “Did she say why?”

“Pep expects a bloodbath,” Adam replies, carefully. “She’s not too keen on the idea, so she decided that rather than tempt it, she’s going to sit out.”

“It won’t come to that,” Aziraphale says. “I’ve said as much. I’ve promised.”

Adam is silent again for a long while. Then he says, gently, “Free will means you don’t always have to believe in what’s promised.”

Aziraphale swallows thickly. If he spoke to anyone but the antichrist in that moment, he would have likely ended the call there. But Adam is different than most. Adam very nearly understands. “I can only do as much as I am capable of doing.”

“I know. We all know.” Another pause in which Adam laughs wryly. “No one expects miracles.”

\--

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

10 hours and counting. Level 1 agents, please see PMs for Skype info. Mtg. will be short.

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

9 hours. @enbyapostle @bribrian @theyoungster @secondofhisname @pepperup u good?

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

8 hours.

[.gif of a screaming Macaulay Culkin in the movie Home Alone]

**Charly Dean**

@enbyapostle

Holy shit @teamhumanityofficial @rebeccacalledbecky Calm ur tits.

\--

Charly looks tired under the thick line of eyeshadow around hir eyes. Sie hands Aziraphale a fresh cup of tea an, on an impulse, pulls the god into a close hug, too. 

Aziraphale holds the human close and carefully. “How’s your father doing these days? I quite forgot to ask, in all the chaos.”

Charly lifts a shoulder, sipping hir own giant mug of black coffee without a wince, even though the stuff is practically sludge. Red eye flights are the _worst_. “Cranky, mostly. He’s almost seventy, you know. I think he’s feeling bitter about the whole End of Days thing messing up his retirement plans.”

Aziraphale smiles. “Well, that’s just more incentive for things to go in our favor, I should think.”

“I heard from Rebecca recently,” Charly says, casually. “Did you know her and Alice called it quits?”

Aziraphale nods. “Yes. As amicably as possible, I understand, but it’s still sad to hear.”

Charly grips the god’s shoulder lightly, meeting his eyes with a serious expression. “I’ve been pining for that sweet piece of ass for almost twenty years, Az. She’s single and ready to mingle, now. I’m begging you: Save the world.”

And then Charly is striding out the room. Sie high fives Crowley as they pass in the threshold of the office door.

“Something up?” Crowley asks, frowning at Aziraphale’s gobsmacked expression.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, weakly. “I will never understand the youth.”

Crowley snorts. “Drink your tea,” he suggests. “And look over this progress report. It’s going out to the Beeb in the next ten minutes.”

\--

Adam arrives with five more hours on the clock. He apologizes for taking so long. “I have the girls with me, you see, and they take for-bloody-ever.”

“Dad,” his eldest, Evelyn, says in a long whine. She’s fifteen and gangling, all sharp elbows and knees. She tucks a strand of long golden hair behind her ear and offers Crowley a wave. “Hi, Uncle Crowley.”

Crowley pulls her into a hug, grinning at her indignant squawk. “Too old to hug your betters, eh?” he accuses when he finally lets her go. 

Evelyn sniffs primly. “You’re not my better. You’re just old. Where’s Az?”

“Busy at the moment, but I’ll make sure he says hello before it pops off. Hey there, starshine, you awake over there?”

Standing behind Evelyn is the second and youngest of the Young children, Bea. Bea rubs her eyes and yawns so wide that everyone present can count her teeth. She’s missing four, which is one more than the last time Crowley saw her.

“Oi!” the demon declares, causing the sleepy girl to startle. “You’ve lost another tooth! How much’d you get, this time?”

Bea bares said teeth for him with the long-suffering air of a child wise beyond her years being asked to perform childish behaviors for the satisfaction of prying adults. “Didn’ get any money,” Bea says. “Evie told me that the tooth fairy isn’t real, and now mum won’t cough it up.”

Crowley barks a laugh. He reaches forward and pulls a silver coin from behind her ear (miracled, of course; he’d never stoop to Aziraphale’s horrible slight of hand tricks) and presses it into her palm. “Don’t spend it on anything frivolous like a college fund or anything. At least not until this day is over.”

“Crowley,” Adam groans. “Ixnay on the endyay ofyay aysday, would you, please? Their mum only gave them over because she’s a non-believer and thinks we’re taking a day trip to see my mother.”

Evelyn makes a small, derisive sound. “He promised us ice creams not to tattle,” she says, not looking up from her phone. 

**Evie Young**

@evesandapples

[a selfie of Evelyn standing in a sparse but nicely-furnished looking office foyer; she is _very_ obviously not at her grandmother’s home in Tadfield]

\--

**TimTim**

@eagerapostle

Hey @teamhumanityofficial can u hook a dude up w a gme plan? Friendly reminder of time zones; am i suppose to take a nap at wrk or what?

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

@eagerapostle and anyone else who needs help with time management, please PM for a weblink to today’s agenda, thank you.

\--

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

1 hr til arrival. Plz report to the coordinator in your city/region as appropriate for last min. instruction. @snekpope69, plz pass on msg to benevolent leader: GOOD LUCK, AZ

\--

Crowley smirks at his phone. “Rebecca says ‘good luck’ from, well, all of them, I suppose.”

Aziraphale has a line of worry between his brows. Crowley soothes it with the pad of his thumb and then his lips. 

“Don’t. Everyone knows the plan. Even the bastards who don’t like us know the plan--thank you, ubiquitous media presence--so they won’t be shocked. Just make sure all the ones stupid enough to try operating heavy machinery don’t bash into things, and we’ll be fine.”

Aziraphale licks his dry lips. “My dear, in case--.”

Adam Young interrupts them, barging in through the bedroom door and, seeing how close they are to each other on the bed, blushes. “Sorry, but--tweet went out. They spotted the Horsemen on their bikes. Headed this way. Straight to St. James’s, most likely.”

“Predictable,” Crowley sighs, but it’s a good thing, really. Aziraphale had been kept awake for nights fretting that Heaven and Hell might try to start the end of times in Tokyo or San Francisco or something out of sheer spite. It doesn’t _really_ matter in terms of how location might affect the plan, but at least this way Crowley can lead the fight from their home turf. There’s comfort in that.

There’s less comfort in what happens now.

“Do be careful,” Aziraphale says, softly, fiddling with Crowley’s shirt collar. “I should hope Hell has enough integrity left in it to not renege on our deal, but if you should be discorporiated--.”

Crowley smirks. “What, you won’t come rescue me again? Angel, I’m wounded.”

Aziraphale blinks at him, slow. “Of course I will,” Aziraphale says, taking the demon far too seriously. “I’ll simply level the entirety of the nine circles from the top down, this time, however. Much less work.”

A slow shudder runs through Crowley’s body. “Hot,” he breathes, reverently. Aziraphale pushes at him with a roll of his eyes. 

“Get away with thee, foul fiend,” he teases. “Just go and give them something to talk about, will you, dear?”

“Spreading the good word, that’s me.”

Aziraphale watches the demon, closing his eyes tightly as Crowley shuts the door behind him. 

_Are you there?_ Aziraphale asks of the world.

In response, he feels a rush of warmth so overwhelming that the god reacts instinctively, his wings flailing out wide, colored primaries brushing the walls of the bedroom, his skin burning with divine light. 

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial 

Go time. Sleep well, everybody. 

\--

It’s not so hard a trick, to lull all the humans on the planet into sleep. Most of them are prepared and ready. Some folks had even gotten the day off from work and school. America had gone so far as to announce it a national holiday. (The memes about “National Kick Biblical Ass Day” had been quite funny). Those who are taken by surprise--non-believers, mostly, but also a few individuals who knew the word and simply hadn’t been able to pause the flow of their lives to stop the apocalypse--Aziraphale takes especial care with. Crowley’s warning about drivers proves especially prudent. 

All the same, it’s simple work for a god of Aziraphale’s scope to effectively press “pause” on the turning of the world. 

All across nations, human beings of every gender, creed, color, and kind yawn and lay down their heads in sleep. Immediately, they also begin to dream.

In reality, unnoticed, Aziraphale’s wings flutter, knocking a book from their nightstand and shattering the bedside lamp. A choked sound of effort escapes his throat as he grabs handfuls of silken, spider-web threads of fate together and _pulls_. 

Charly sits up in hir seat. Sie’s dreaming of high school, again, and is sitting in hir eleventh-grade AP bio class. Usually this dream is one of those common but spooky ones where sie’s forgotten to study for the final exam, despite being a goddamn grown ass adult who hasn’t sat for an exam in decades.

“Hey.”

Charly turns in hir seat and grins wide at Rebecca. Rebecca looks odd--she’s appearing far younger than she is in the real world, probably about college age. There is, to Charly’s low-level chagrin, a beautiful dark-skinned woman standing next to her.

“This is Amara,” Rebecca introduces, excitement clear. “I haven’t seen her in years! We used to date at uni.”

Charly sighs softly, watching a metaphorical door close right before hir eyes. Then, sie stands and offers the woman--who looks more Rebecca’s actual age, in this space--a hand. “Hi, nice to meet you, Amara. You ready to fuck shit up?”

\--

Adam Young is dreaming of Tadfield. Specifically, the old military base. Specifically, the day he told the combined forces of Hell and Heaven to butt out.

His wife sighs, long suffering, as she comes to stand beside him. “So, you aren’t entirely off your head, then, seems like.”

He grins over at her. “I don’t know about that. Sorry you were wrong, darling.”

She makes a moue of distaste. “That’s not all you should be sorry for. Where do you get off, dragging my kids into this nonsense? Don’t like to me, Adam Young, I saw Evie’s Twitter.”

Adam opens his mouth to argue--he didn’t get the girls into anything. No matter where he may or may not of taken them, they would have been pulled into the dreaming, regardless.

“Mum, chill out,” Evie instructs, appearing as if from thin air. She squints at her surroundings thoughtfully. Then, abruptly, she grows three feet taller and sprouts claws and a wicked looking tail with a barb at the end of it. “Huh. Neat.”

“S’like Second Life, a bit, innit it?” a new voice says, thoughtfully. “Hi. My name’s Jenna? I’m new? I got my Team Humanity button, like, two days ago, even.” She looks down at her shirt as expecting to see it and is disappointed it’s not there.

“Just picture it in your head,” Evie suggests. “Like playing pretend as a kid.”

Jenna scrunches her nose up. The well-known logo of Team Humanity (yes, there’s a tree-and-snake motif involved, blame Crowley’s design staff for being hipsters and far too enamoured of irony) appears in a big round button clipped to her t-shirt. “Cool!”

Bea wanders into the scene. She’s already riding a large duplicate of their house cat, Ginger, and brandishing a colorful gun that shoots massive, sparkly bubbles into the air when she pulls the trigger. When she grins at them all, all her teeth are grown back. 

“This is _awesome_ ,” Bea declares, shooting a stream of bubbles into the sky.

\--

He starts them in small groupings, largely based on real-life associations (family, friends, familiar faces from school and work and the grocers), and then progresses each dreamscape into a larger and larger scope. 

At one point, the false realities give a faint tremor, as if on the edge of a light earthquake. 

_So sorry_ , Aziraphale breathes out into the consciousnesses of every human being. He sounds infinitely tired, already.

A thousand thousand voices crash into his understanding, a messy tumble of words of encouragement and snatches of verse and broken bits of prayer. The god holds it all to his heart and grows around it, fueling himself with it, holding himself steady.

He gets a tighter grip on the threads cutting into his metaphorical fingers and _pulls_.

\--

While a god perches on a bed in a brownstone in London, coordinating the dreaming minds of mankind, a demon sits on a bench in an empty St. James’s park and waits for two generals to meet him there.

Beelzebub appears first in a hot rush of fire. Crowley takes in the demon’s countenance and offers his fellow demon a slight nod of greeting. He doesn’t stand up. 

Crowley is surprised when a great crackling of lightning spears the sky to deposit Heaven’s representative and does not, in fact, produce the archangel Gabriel as expected.

“Where--?”

“There has been a change of plans,” Michael snaps. “Ours is not to reason why.”

Crowley shrugs and offers Michael a little wave of his fingers in greeting.

“So,” he says, rolling his shoulders back and favoring the two entities with a grin. “Shall we chat?”

\--

The last of the dreamscapes come together with a faint yet resounding ‘click.’ 

The expanse is massive, yet it doesn’t seem to matter. Every soul in attendance recognizes every other. It’s like that, in dreams. Anything is possible.

 _Those of you that have a handle on it,_ Aziraphale’s voice says from everywhere, _Train up the ones who aren’t quite there, will you, please?_

The ‘scape erupts with motion and noise, most of it unrestrained and gleeful. Children are the most naturally adept at changing their own shapes and calling strange, amazing impossibilities into being. Individuals with creative bents are equally adept, though perhaps less open minded in their constructions. By the time Crowley sends his warning, even the most rigid and self-conscious of souls in the ‘scape are crafting objects from the ether (usually boring things like every day swords and non-bubble-shooting guns, but, honestly, they have the right spirit, at least). 

_They’re coming. Remember, my dears, it’s not a battle. Please, keep yourselves safe first and foremost and imagine your weapons as non-lethal in nature._ He pauses. Then offers, tentatively, _Have fun._

\--

It’s not so hard, tricking the representatives of Heaven and Hell into setting off Aziraphale’s trap. Crowley simply has to strut about and wound some pride, wave his hands around like a madman a bit, convince the generals of Heaven and Hell that he’s god-mad and weak. 

Michael and Beelzebub step into his sphere of influence. Crowley miracles them into place, and then Aziraphale whammies them along with all the human race.

It’s the army of 20-million armed and angry entities that’s a fair bit trickier.

Crowley runs. He runs as the sky burns with holy light and the ground burns with infernal fire. He leads them out of St. James’s Park and through the emptied streets of London, keeping well within the perimeter the Prime Minister had agreed upon (there’d been an official document and everything, what a lark!) to ensure the safety of London’s sleeping masses. 

He runs until he has nowhere else to go without crossing over his own steps. By that time, all the soldiers of Heaven and Hell have landed, scattered about within the area in which Crowley has placed them. The demon swallows thickly, backed up against a big, glass storefront window. Angels and demons advance on him as one, stony faced and grinning with frightening familiarity in turn. 

_Now, Angel! Now! Now, please!_

Crowley keens out a high whimper of relief as all the armies of Heaven and Hell suddenly crumple, asleep, at his feet. One of the swords of the angels lands with a clang so close to his toes as to cut into the snakeskin of his shoes. He stands there a while, just shivering to pieces.

_On my way up. You all right?_

A long, worrying pause and then, finally, a response that is more emotion than words. Aziraphale’s love, brushing against his own soul.

 _Good enough. Hold tight, Angel._ _Not much longer, now._

\--

Charly conjures a lasso from thin air and deftly wrangles an angel and a demon together in the tight loop. 

“I didn’t know you could do that!” Rebecca calls. She’s currently pointing at large swaths of ground and turning it into sucking quicksand under the feet of her foes.

“I can’t! Dream logic, I guess!”

Rebecca laughs and reaches out to Charly, taking hir hand with her own free one.

“Hey,” Rebecca says, warmly, watching with satisfaction as a particularly large and scary-looking angel disappears with a soft, slushy squealch. “About Amara. She’s just an old friend, you know?”

Charly swallows. Sie conjures a big net and watches it fall on ten or so of the opposition, trapping them underneath where they squirm and kick and bicker at each other. “Oh, yeah?”

“Get a drink with me, after?” Rebecca asks, even as she straight up punches a demon in the face.

Charly grins, bonking two angels’ heads together with a comical, Three Stooges sound effect. “Yeah. That’d be nice.”

\--

Crowley crawls carefully onto the bed. 

Aziraphale sits in a slump in the middle of it, breathing soft and shallow, eyes moving rapidly behind his closed lids. He’s soaked through with sweat. Even his cramped, twitching wings are damp. His hands rest loose in his lap, fingers spasming sporadically from time to time. 

There’s a thin stream of silver-red ichor (blood of the gods) trickling from his nose and ears. Crowley grimaces at the sight and gently waves his hand around Aziraphale’s head, miracling the existent blood away only to watch it flow freely once more.

The demon takes the hands of his god and squeezes them lightly between his own fingers. He closes his eyes and sighs low as his body shifts--scale-and-feather wings of his own flaring out only to wrap around himself and Aziraphale as if forming a shield, scales like armor plating rising up over his skin. He has strict instructions not to follow the humans into the dream world. His goal, now, is to protect Aziraphale from whatever extra force Hell and Heaven might yet be capable of sending their way. 

“Hurry up, Angel,” Crowley mutters. “I’m bored.”

\--

The dreamscape shakes, a much more drastic tremor than before. Humans, demons, and angels all go still in response, peering reflexively at each other with suspicious eyes.

“Let’s _end this_!” a human agent yells, starting up a chorus all through the masses of Team Humanity. 

Armed with whatever their imaginations are capable of giving them, the collective might of the human race surges forth on the poor, unfortunate remnants of the armies of above and below.

\--

It’s the soldiers and generals of Heaven and Hell who are forced to wake up first.

Michael and Beelzebub stare at each other with wide eyes full of a shared and certain horror. 

“I have to--.”

“Lord Satan will--.”

“Uh, retreat?” Michael suggests, breathlessly.

Beelzebub nods so hard that some of the buzzing flies around their head go careening off into the air with the force of it. 

They disappear, and the take all their amassed, well-trained, very sleepy soldiers with them.

\--

Humanity comes to in pieces, waking up as if from an especially good and restful nap. 

Charly jerks awake in hir bed at the hotel and isn’t surprised when, mere minutes later, a knock sounds at hir door. Sie grins wide to see Rebecca standing there, looking blessedly more familiar with her laugh lines and crow’s feet and the streaks of gray just starting to grow through her hair. 

“Hi,” Charly says, warmly.

Rebecca waves awkwardly and then, abruptly, pulls hir into a bone-crushing hug. “Hi, yourself.”

\--

Adam Young wakes up and immediately checks on his daughter’s lying in the bed across the way. Evelyn quirks an eyebrow at him, already rolling over to pull her phone off the charger. 

Bea bounces into eager wakefulness with a loud cry of “Best! Day! Ever! ...Can we call mum?”

Adam and Bea call Mrs. Young on speaker phone. 

**Evie Young**

@evesandapples

@teamhumanityofficial 

That was cool. Status update, tho?

\--

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

Sry for delay, every1. Ur mod (@rebeccacalledbecky) was busy. Still waiting official word, but all seems quiet on western front. Roll call?

**TimTim**

@eagerapostle

@teamhumanityofficial All clear in USA. Have 2 go to wrk now tho ‘cos called in. Bogus. #retailhell

**Amara Jahar**

@aquietplace

@teamhumanityofficial All’s well at home for me. Family in Nigeria say the same.

**Charly Dean**

@enbyapostle

@teamhumanityofficial Heard from dad in GA. All good.

**Mikhal**

@escherpainting

@teamhumanityofficial All good from Russia.

@teamhumanityofficial All clear!

@teamhumanityofficial A-Ok.

@teamhumanityofficial No worries, mate.

@teamhumanityofficial Canada still standing. Shame no pics??

@teamhumanityofficial Hey, what about Az?

@teamhumanityofficial Any word from Az?

@teamhumanityofficial @snekpope69 Hey where’s Aziraphale? Is he OK

\--

Santa Muerta grins at him with three gold plated teeth.

With effort, the god of humanity grins back, his own gold teeth shimmering like stars in return.

“ _Angelus_ ,” Santa Muerta all but purrs. “You saved many souls from my care, this day.”

Aziraphale only looks at her, too tired to mind, much, whether or not the goddess is pleased or irked by this fact.

“I’ve come to say goodbye to you,” Santa Muerta says, and that is news enough to make the new god lift his head. She shushes him, pressing his head back into her bony lap, running her fingers through his curls. “And to give you something of mine.”

Aziraphale’s brows draw in confusion.

“There are moments when the flow of the world is no longer friendly to its lesser gods. This is one of those, for me. They will not pray to The Dead Woman, any longer, after this. What good would it do, after all? Why put their trust in death when their own humanity has so much more to offer them?”

Aziraphale works his mouth, attempting an apology. She presses her fingers against his lips. 

“It is not a sad thing. It is the way. I am happy to have done my work. I am happier still to hand it over to you, Aziraphale. I know that you will treat my legacy kindly, if nothing else.”

She leans over him and presses her bared teeth to his temple in a kiss. “Goodbye. It was such a pleasure, to watch you grow. Unexpected. But interesting, all the same.” 

\--

There’s no pictures of the great standoff between Team Humanity and the forces of good and evil. A tongue-in-cheek hashtag, #PictureProof, starts to circulate, usually accompanied by bad photoshops and rambling descriptions of all the various, improbable ways in which humanity had saved their world. 

There is _something_ to archive from the event, though.

About an hour after humanity wakes up from its eventual nap, rainbows start to appear in the sky over every corner of the world.

**Official Team Humanity**

@teamhumanityofficial

Mod Rebecca here. No idea what’s up re: official word but...rainbows??? Pics, folks?

**Adam Young**

@secondofhisname

@teamhumanityofficial Genesis 9:13-16, guys. Read a book.

\--

“If you so much as breathe on him, I’ll tear you into pieces so fine I’ll need the Shop-Vac to get you out of the carpeting,” Crowley says in a low, dull voice.

The archangel Gabriel goes still where he has abruptly appeared in the corner of the bedroom. He’s wearing a simple smock. His bare feet are smudged with dust, and his eyes, when he looks upon Aziraphale, are vaguely wild. “I-I have a message from the Lord.”

“Yeah, well. You’ll have to leave it with me, I s’pect,” Crowley says, tiredly. He reaches up and absently brushes one of Aziraphale’s curls away from his closed eyes. 

Gabriel swallows with a dry click and nods furiously, reciting his message all in a rush of one breath. “‘I have made with you a new covenant, marked with the usual sign. May you accept this gesture of peace between our peoples and may strife exist between us no longer. What was made of my hands is now perfected in yours.”

Crowley nods. “I got it,” he says, stiffly. “Now go away.”

Gabriel’s eyes flicker nervously from Crowley to Aziraphale’s still form and back. “I could try--?”

Crowley hisses sharply, whirling to face the now cowering angel. There is nothing human in the fury of the demon’s eyes. “ _Get out_.”

Gabriel disappears with a small “eep!” He leaves a single feather floating to the ground after him. Crowley stares at it with narrow eyes. His tongue flickers between his lips.

\--

**Adam Young**

The missus wants me and the kids home, so we’re off. No word from you two in days. What gives?

\--

**Pepper Peterson**

Where are you? Everyone keeps asking all over the social media. Even the news is in on it, now. Talked to one of your local agents; they said they can’t get in the church. 

**Pepper Peterson**

Are you OK?

**Pepper Peterson**

I know you’re probably mad. I’m sorry. I was scared. I should have trusted you both. When everyone else fell asleep I thought that was it; I thought I’d have to watch everyone die, unable to put up a fight. But you won. They won. I’m sorry. 

**3 Missed Calls from Pepper Peterson**

**Pepper Peterson**

I’m coming over.

\--

Pepper is shocked, all things considered, when the door of the London Team Humanity HQ swings open at her touch. 

She’s even more shocked by what she finds behind the bedroom door in the apartment upstairs.

Aziraphale, god of humanity, lies prone on his back in the bed. And laid over him in long, languorous coils is a giant snake with shiny black scales and familiar yellow-gold eyes. When the door opens, the snake looks up and hisses, showing sharp fangs.

Pepper takes a deep, steadying breath and slowly enters the room, keeping close to the wall. “Hello, Mr. C.”

The snake watches her move with cold, glassy eyes.

“All right, well. S’new one for me. How about for you?” 

Pepper’s eyes scan the room. She’s not sure what she’s looking for, but it seems unwise not to be well aware of her surroundings, now. Nothing seems strange or out of place to her. Nothing except a white feather on the floor near the bed. She frowns but doesn’t approach it. 

“So, this is a pickle.”

Pepper takes a step closer to the bed. The snake rears forward, too, snapping at her in warning. Pepper will not be bullied by anything, especially not a cranky old serpent. “I’m here to help you,” she snaps at him. “Let me get closer.”

The snake sways in place, regarding her in silence. Slowly, its body pulls back. It pools itself into a tall heap right over Aziraphale’s sternum. 

When Pepper approaches, it hisses in irritation but doesn’t snap at her again. 

“All right,” she repeats, a bit shaken. She had expected Crowley to be upset with her, perhaps. Maybe that they’d even have a little row. But she hadn’t expected the demon would be, well, this, at the time.

“Aziraphale?” Pepper says, loudly. She hesitates and then grabs his bare toes, wiggling his feet. “Az?”

Nothing. Okay.

Pepper sits down on the edge of the bed. This time, she reaches out to the giant black snake. “Rough couple of days, I take it?”

The snake side eyes her and then slowly slithers forward, bumping her hand with his head. “Yeah,” Pepper agrees, faintly. “It’s been pretty weird.”

Pepper’s eyes trail over Aziraphale. He’s breathing, at least. He looks asleep. His eyes move rapidly under his lids, as if he’s dreaming.

“Nobody’s heard from him since the dream broke and they all woke up,” Pepper says, more to herself than anything. “Seems likely he’s only still asleep, doesn’t it?”

Pepper shakes the god’s shoulder. “Hey!”

Nothing. Pepper sighs and looks at the snake, who has his eyes on her, head ducked slightly. 

“Yeah, s’pose you tried everything already.”

Pepper gently runs a hand over the snake’s head, petting him idly. “Question is, what happened to you? Is it the same thing that happened to him or something else entirely?” 

The bedroom door bursts open, startling all three of them. Crowley lifts his snake body to a full height, hissing out an angry warning. Pepper makes a small sound of shock and lifts her phone, threatening to throw it at the newcomer. Aziraphale lies still.

“Evie?” Pepper says, voice high. She clears her thought and, embarrassed, lowers her potential weapon. “What are you doing here? Your dad said you lot went home.”

Evelyn holds up a finger in a ‘just a second’ gesture. She aims her phone and takes a photo. 

**Evie Young**

@evesandapples

@teamhumanityofficial Found them. 

[photo of Aziraphale lying in the bed in the apartment above London HQ. Only his feet are clearly visible. A big black snake sits coiled up on top of him, glowering at the photographer]

Evie puts her phone in her back pocket, surveying them all with a raise brow. “So. This is weird.”

\--

“I took the train back myself. Everybody was freaking out about where Aziraphale had gone to and why Uncle Crowley hadn’t contacted anybody, and I was like ‘I’ll just go visit’ because I taught myself how to lockpick last summer, and I didn’t think it’d be very hard to find some evidence, in here.” Evelyn pauses, looking around the room. “I didn’t think they’d just be...here, though.”

Pepper hums her agreement. 

“I have a theory,” Evelyn remarks, after a while. She’s back on her phone, apparently scrolling through the #TeamHumanity feed on Tumblr. 

“I’m listening,” Pepper says, because why not?

“The mythology says Crowley gets more snake-y when Aziraphale is in god mode, right?”

“Right. We’ve all seen it, even just in photos and things.”

“So, if Crowley is full-on scalie, does that mean Aziraphale is, like, maxed out on godliness? He’s being _super_ godly, somehow, maybe, we just can’t tell?”

Pepper frowns. “If that were the case, couldn’t Aziraphale contact someone on the team? He goes into god mode to do things like dream walk and answer prayers. If he’s ‘super godly,’ that stuff should come easily.”

“Not if he’s too busy doing whatever he’s up to to call home. You know they’re both bad about that sort of thing.”

Pepper snorts. “Yeah. Adam used to say it was ‘cos they’d spent so long just observing us, mostly keeping each other’s company. For all that they’re a massive part of what we are, now, as people, they fall into old habits and forget other people care about them.”

Evelyn shrugs. “So, Az is doing something big, generating a lot of power. And Crowley is affected to the point that he’s gone total protective demon guard snake. Neither of them are going to be much help to _us_ , like that. How do we snap them out of it?”

Pepper pulls out her phone.

**Pepper Peterson**

@pepperup

@teamhumanofficial Need some help re: Az and C. Putting call out. Any myth buffs got ideas? [1/?]

**Pepper Peterson**

@pepperup

@teamhumanofficial Az out for count. Crowley in 100% snake/guardian mode. Think Az big powered up ‘cos C snake form is total. [2/?]

**Pepper Peterson**

@pepperup

@teamhumanofficial Q is: what is A doing? Ideas? Sightings? Tnx. [3/3]

**Adam Young**

@secondofhisname

@pepperup @teamhumanofficial Az lvled up with Lamp Post of Life. New lvl up? anytg weird in area?

**Pepper Peterson**

@pepperup

@secondofhisname @teamhumanofficial White feather. Az’s? [link to a flickr image of the white angel’s feather]

**TimTim**

@eagerapostle

@pepperup nah, too pale. A’s feathers have rainbow shine. Photo for comp. 

[link to a flickr image of a different white feather that does, in fact, catch the light in a particular way]

Pepper is not going to ask how Tim got that.

**Adam Young**

@secondofhisname

@pepperup @teamhumanofficial Gabriel? Mbe Michael. M in dreamscape, no reported G.

**Evie Young**

@evesandapples

@teamhumanofficial @secondofhisname Doesn’t answer the real q. Where’s Az?

**Adam Young**

@secondofhisname

@evesandapples Ur mother is absolutely furious, jsyk. You in for dinner or no?

Evelyn glances up from her phone at Pepper. Pepper sighs and waves her on. “Might as well stick around and help me figure this out.”

**Evie Young**

@evesandapples

@secondofhisname Home tmw night, promise. 

\--

Aziraphale sits on a familiar staircase in Limbo and watches the ghosts of children as they drift, aimless, around the perpetually overcast courtyard.

They are entirely uninterested in him, this time. Of course, there is also no longer a door for them to guard.

Santa Muerta had kissed him and, in doing so, pressed her powers and dominion upon him. If he’d known the extent of her intention at the time, he might have asked her to wait a few weeks. Give him a breather, at least.

The Dead Woman, whose dominion is over not the dead themselves as much as the act of dying, slipping from one life to the next. Limbo is full of souls trapped in exactly that step. And Aziraphale is going to let them all go.

He stands on the steps. Not to far from where he has positioned himself, a familiar, brown stain of blood smears along the stone wall. He ignores it. “Hello,” he calls out, and all the assembled souls go still in shock. Slowly, as one, they turn to him. A spark of something like true interest alights in their glazed, dark eyes.

“I don’t think you will remember me. But a while ago, you helped me with something very important. You helped free me from this place. And, now, I have the power to return the favor.” Aziraphale clears his throat. He’s never truly gotten the hang of grand, godly speeches. “So, erm. Go on with you, then, I suppose.”

And he lifts his hands. And all of Hell trembles. And the first circle of Hell opens wide, the earth falling into it great, damp clumps that fall right through the bodies of the gathered ghosts. The light of the sun shine downs on them for the first time in years, decades, eons. And, one by one, a thousand-thousand innocent faces break out into soft, tremulous smiles. Aziraphale scatters the remnants of their souls to the firmament from which they are made and, with a gust of breath, sends them out into the universe, floating up and outward to the stars. 

Hell shakes again. This time, from its heart.

“Oh dear. Best be off,” Aziraphale tells himself, fretfully, as Satan stirs in his throne room. Aziraphale furls out his wings and disappears from sight.

\--

He finds himself in hospitals. At the scenes of accidents. In cold, lonely spaces full of dread. 

He’s not a psychopomp. Not exactly. He’s no guardian, there to take the souls of the departed on their final resting place. He’s merely a presence, a figure of support in a world gone mad. (And, of course, if the circumstances are exactly right, from time to time, he meddles).

As Death draws near, pulling a soul into Aziraphale’s dominion, the god sometimes does the metaphysical equivalent of pointing over Death’s shoulder and saying “Oh, what’s that!” and dragging the soul away while the Azarel’s attention is diverted.

Death, being no slouch, catches on quick.

STOP THAT he says. IT’S NOT VERY PROFESSIONAL. 

Aziraphale lifts a shoulder. “No. I’ve never been especially good at that, I’m afraid.”

Death would squint at him if Death had eyes. I KNOW YOU. I HEAR STORIES. YOU’RE CAUSING NO END OF TROUBLE FOR JUST ABOUT EVERYONE, IT SEEMS. AND NOW ME.

“You can hardly deny that some of them deserve a fighting chance. And who’s to say if I’m causing any trouble, actually. Aren’t you aware that the plan is ineffable? Perhaps they’re meant to get away, this time.”

Death tilts his skull. Aziraphale wonders, vaguely, if Death and Santa Muerta had ever met, socially. He rather thinks they could find much to talk about regarding the art of nonverbal communication using only bones. 

PERHAPS. Death concedes, after an ominous silence. BUT I WILL KEEP MY EYE ON YOU, TROUBLEMAKER.

“Oh, well, of course. Quite right. So, er. Good day, then?”

Death gives him a slow, creaky nod. He pauses, turns back. I WOULD NOT, IF I WERE YOU, FORGET YOUR PRIMARY DUTIES, GOD OF HUMANITY. THERE ARE MANY COVENANTS YOU ARE BREAKING, NOW.

And for the first time in a very long while, Aziraphale wonders what the living humans and Crowley are doing while he’s been away.

“Oh, dear.”

\--

Evelyn lifts a hand in greeting as Aziraphale gasps sharply and rockets forward on the bed. She doesn’t look up from her phone but says, cryptically. “Hi. You should fix that, probably.”

Looking around himself in confusion, it doesn’t take the god too long to determine what ‘that’ indicates. There is a painfully familiar big, black snake curled up tight at the foot of the bed.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, unhappily. He leans over and grabs at the snake, tugging his head and most of his upper coils into his lap. Roused by the sudden warmth of a body underneath him, the snake opens his eyes.

Evelyn snaps a picture at exactly the moment when Crowley transforms back into a human-shaped being of the world right in Aziraphale’s lap. 

“Okay,” Evelyn says, standing up and leaving. “See you later.”

The photo Evie posts to Twitter (with the #TeamHumanity hashtag) gets quite a lot of attention.

\--

“I fixed it,” Evelyn tells Pepper on her way out of the apartment. “I’m going to go catch the evening train back home. ‘Bye.”

“What--?”

“Erk! Uh. Hello, Pepper.”

Pepper turns on her heel, staring at Crowley with wide eyes. He’s wrapped in a blanket and not much else. 

“Hi?” she manages.

Aziraphale appears behind Crowley, rubbing sleep from his eyes and yawning wide. “Hello, dear. Can we help you with something?”

Pepper shakes her head vigorously. “No. No, definitely not. Right. Well. I’ll be off, I guess. Glad you’re both doing better. Send me a text sometime. Goodbye!”

Crowley scrubs a hand over his hair, luxuriating in the simple joy of having fingers and toes again. He turns to Aziraphale, throwing his arms about the god, wrapping him up in the blanket, too. “I know you’ve been asleep for a week or something awful like that but how would you feel about going back to bed?”

Aziraphale stares at the demon. “I suppose that’d be all right.”

“Great. I’m freezing. Warm me up.”

\--

Crowley tears off bit of toast and pops it between Aziraphale’s teeth. “So. God of humanity and the transitive act of dying. Cheery.”

“She didn’t give me much of a choice in the matter, I’m afraid. And I can hardly leave the job undone.”

“Of course,” Crowley says, wryly. “Remember when we used to laze about day after day doing nothing much of anything except a few tempts and thwarts in between? Those sunny, sunny days.”

“Sloth _is_ the easiest sin,” Aziraphale calls back, with a smile. “We’re doing it right now. It needn’t be work, work all the time. Humanity has, I should think, proven itself more than capable of self-management.”

“And there shouldn’t be another tussle with Heaven on the horizon, at least.”

Aziraphale nods. “And Hell might try something, I suppose, especially in light of what was done with Limbo--.”

“--What _you did_ with Limbo,” Crowley says, firmly.

“Yes, all right. Regardless, I don’t feel particularly threatened by Satan and his ilk, do you?”

Crowley stretches out with a low groan of satisfaction. “No. I don’t feel particularly threatened by much of anything, these days, to tell the truth. It’s terrifyingly relaxing.”

Aziraphale tugs lightly at his hair. “It will be fine, I’m sure.”

“So what do we do moving forward?” Crowley asks. It’s a fair question. They’ve been doing nothing but steadily working toward a goal for three decades, and now their task is done.

“Perhaps we’ll just play it by ear, for now, dear,” Aziraphale suggests. 

“Make it up as we go. Sounds about right.”

Aziraphale hums in agreement. “I must admit, though, I’ve been thinking quite a lot about God’s message--perfecting what He made. You know, the younger ones are awfully worked up about a fair few things, right now. Debt and climate change and political upheavals and the like. I’m not certain they’re entirely convinced the world won’t up and end all on its own sooner rather than later.”

Crowley makes him eat more toast. “Yeah? Gonna actively fix up the world next, then?”

“Oh, I think they can do that themselves. But we’ve certainly proved our capacity to provide the right support and resources, haven’t we?”

“I should hope,” Crowley agrees. The demon shrugs. “Fine, Angel. Make the world a better place. Why not. I mean, we do live in it, too.”

Aziraphale pets his hair lightly. “Of course, dear,” he says, agreeably. “That’s the only reason why, I’m sure.”


	9. Encore 2 - Who Wants to Live Forever?

Crowley pads into the sunroom of the seaside house and comes to an abrupt stop when he catches sight of Aziraphale. “Oh, hello, you. I thought you were doing death work, today?”

It’s 2093, and the world still spins merrily on.

Aziraphale reaches out, pulling the demon into his arms so that they both sit together on the wicker loveseat, staring at the glass-paned wall looking out on the perfect, clear waters. He waves a familiar feather in front of Crowley’s eyes. Gabriel’s feather, white and soft. There’s a lot of things can be done with an angel’s feathers.

“I’ve been thinking about making a deal,” Aziraphale says, conversationally.

Crowley cocks his head, questioning. “That’s ominous.”

Aziraphale smiles. “Only slightly.”

Crowley sighs, giving in. “All right, then. What are you up to?”

Aziraphale gives the demon a light squeeze. “So suspicious.”

Crowley waits him out. 

“It’s a bit unfair, isn’t it? You’ve been a marvelous apostle, my dear, don’t mistake me. But wouldn’t you like more?”

Crowley’s eyes widen. He laughs, the sound slightly hysterical. “Are you serious? Angel. What--why would I ever--?”

“Your ties are still to Hell. Oh, I know you’d never betray me to them or anything. And they can’t recall you any longer. And your body is as much your own as it will ever be. But you’re still a demon, in the end.”

Crowley makes a low, unhappy sound. “I told you. I told you that you’d be above me. That I couldn’t cut it, in comparison.”

Aziraphale shakes his head. “That isn’t what this is about.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“Humanity is thriving. Every year, they out pace themselves. I’m proud of them, I truly am. But their progression does seem to indicate that, eventually, they might reach heights of the like once reserved for ethereal and occult beings.”

Crowley considers this and finally has to nod his agreement. Once they had helped alleviate concerns related to survival, once they had positioned the world on a platform based on abundance and community instead of false scarcity and individualism, humans had taken to focusing in on their passions. Science and the arts had blossomed tenfold, throwing much of the world into a new renaissance. They are starting to successfully colonize space, eager to see more wonders than their own planet has to offer. In time, their understanding of science may well put them on par with the abilities maintained by demon and angel kind.

Crowley smirks up at his god. “You want to let me keep my edge.”

“I want you to feel safe,” Aziraphale says, with a shrug. For all the advancements they have watched take place over the last few generations, humankind is still capable of the most atrocious evil. Another bout like the 14th century will likely do Crowley’s head in for centuries after the fact, especially now that they are both so much more involved in the humans as individuals than ever before.

“So who exactly does one trade with to become a god?”

Aziraphale smiles.

\--

Gabriel nods his head to them in greeting when they arrive. He’s less nervous than the last time Crowley saw him, but he has retained the humility Aziraphale had inspired in him so long ago. 

“It’s good to see you,” Aziraphale tells his former kin politely. “Thank you for meeting with us today.”

“Of course,” Gabriel says, and really seems to mean that. The archangel turns, indicating the burning flame of the lamp post behind him. “You had something to ask me?”

Aziraphale nods. “I touched that flame, once, and Knew as God Knows.”

“That’s its intended purpose,” Gabriel agrees, carefully. “I don’t think He ever thought anyone would actually use it, though.”

Aziraphale waves that away. “What I’d like to know is this: How do I temper the flame so that it retains its abilities and yet could be used on an infernal creature?”

Gabriel’s eyes shift to Crowley uncomfortably. 

Crowley holds up the single feather. Gabriel’s eyes widen.

“An angel of your standing, you don’t go about shedding feathers left and right willy nilly. You left me a favor,” Crowley says. “We’d like to collect.”

Gabriel closes his eyes and sighs. “Fine,” the archangel says, a bit of his old testiness bleeding through. He nods to Crowley. “Come with me.”

Aziraphale moves between the angel and his acolyte. “If anything happens to him, Gabriel--.”

Gabriel swallows thickly. “I understand. It’s safe. I promise.”

Aziraphale nods. “Go ahead then, please.”

Gabriel leads Crowley to the base of the lamp post. “The light is divine, but it’s not strictly _holy_ , not in a way that would affect you. God made this artifact, but its power is not of Heaven. Its powers are accessible to you, but they have to be tempered with the right additive.” 

“Additive?”

Gabriel nods at the feather in Crowley’s hand.

Crowley smirks, tilting his head at the angel in thought. “Ineffable plans, is it?”

Gabriel looks away for a moment. “Just plans,” he says, softly. “Sometimes, an angel does something on his own.”

Crowley hums at that. “Interesting.” 

Gabriel avoids the demon’s gaze. He simply climbs up the leerie ladder and drops the feather in. The flame sputters and then regains its usual glow, its flame a brighter, whiter shade. “It should be fine, now.”

Crowley swallows thickly, staring up at it.

“You know,” Gabriel offers, “If an angel can do something on his own, from time to time, a demon probably can, too.”

Crowley shoots the angel a look. “ _I_ am an obedient servant to my god,” the demon says, with a sniff, and then he clamors up the ladder and touches the fire before he can second-guess himself.

\--

Crowley dreams. At least, he thinks it’s a dream. Adam Young is there, afterall, and Adam Young has been dead a long, long time. 

“Who will you be, then?”

“Isn’t Crowley good enough?”

Adam, eleven years old and burning from within with the powers of Hell and the love of humanity inside of him, shrugs. “Crowley’s all right, I suspect, but that’s not what I meant. I meant what’s your dominion. Crowley, god of what?”

Crowley peers up at the treehouse where Adam stands. 

Someone taps his shoulder, and he turns into it. His breath catches in his throat.

“Hello,” Eve says. She’s just as Crowley remembers her from the Garden. Her eyes are soft with a new-lost innocence, her touch just as warm as it had been as she had stroked her fingers across his scales thousands of years ago. “Hello, Crawly.”

“That’s not my name.”

“No,” she agrees. 

Crowley leans into her touch. She strokes his hair as Aziraphale does, scratching her fingernails against his scalp. 

“What would you do with this much power?” she asks him. And when she asks him, he can _feel_ it inside of him, the light of Life, thrumming through his being like an extra heartbeat. “What piece of the universe do you wish to claim?”

Aziraphale is the god of humanity. Humanity, as in the people. Humanity, as in the goodness and kindness that comes from the human race at its best. His reach is massive, his influence--when he chooses to wield it--is vast, extending even into the moments that exist between life and death.

Crowley thinks of a Garden. Of an apple. Of a seed that grows into something bigger than itself, like how an idea can grow into a following that can revolutionize a global society. 

Aziraphale has dominion over humanity’s hearts. 

Crowley rather thinks he’d prefer dominion over humanity’s minds.

“I gave you an apple,” Crowley tells Eve.

“You gave me a knowledge that changed my world,” Eve agrees.

“That’s what I want,” Crowley says. Barely daring, he reaches out and touches her as she touches him, running questing fingertips over the line of her jaw. “I want to be the god of that.”

\--

Aziraphale shatters the dense pieces of oily rock around him. Crowley hisses and flinches away from the light of the sun until Aziraphale gently returns his glasses to his nose.

“Now who’s being nostalgic?” Aziraphale tutts at him, absently. Crowley looks around, smiling at the familiar sight of Eden all around them. They’re even sitting in the same place within it as Aziraphale had previously conjured.

“Well, it just seemed like such a good idea,” Crowley says, dryly. 

“Last time, I made a divine pact and it disappeared.”

Crowley, with help from Aziraphale, stands up on his bare, naked feet. “Yes, well. I like it. Leave it where it is.”

Aziraphale laughs. “But we don’t know where it is--that’s the problem, my dear.”

Crowley waves a dismissive hand. “Leave it. It’s all right.”

“Is it?” Aziraphale asks, still faintly amused.

“Trust me. I Know.”

\--

Their stories are told at bedtime. In books. In plays. In movies and on the holographic TVs. There are two gods. Aziraphale, the god of humanity--of all the goodness the race has to offer. And Crowley, the god of revelation--the seed of divine influence in the actions of all mankind. Their influence has shaped the course of human history, present, and future. They remain at a respectful distance but will, if asked, often intercede. 

They were different types of beings, once. Servants to masters on opposing sides of a moral and ethical divide--the sort of divide that philosopher’s no longer consider of much importance, anymore. 

Much of what is told about them is twisted out of shape from the reality. Overtime, Aziraphale and Crowley change with the belief--as much as they choose to, at least.

Only one tale never quite reaches the ears of the people, much to Aziraphale’s eternal relief. It’s quite embarrassing, going about losing large pieces of oneself, even if it _was_ for a good cause.

“It’d be so cinematic, though, Angel,” Crowley argues, not for the first time.

“No one even knows what Hell _is_ anymore, dear. They’d have no context.”

Crowley flexes his fingers and grins. “I could remind them.”

Aziraphale roll his eyes. Crowley uses his divine powers in ways that the former angel finds utterly ridiculous, more often than not. Sneaking into the thoughts of creatives and bringing about the renovation of long-lost things like frozen dinners and roller skates and Doctor Who.

“Just reminding them of their history. They’re getting so old, now, they’re forgetting the important things. Shakespeare’s gonna get snuffed right out of the collective consciousness if I don’t do something.”

Aziraphale hums softly. “That would be a shame,” he admits.

Crowley kisses his cheek. “Come with me, then. Help me get the details right.”

“Oh, my dear, I don’t--.”

“I’ve got a title for it already.”

Aziraphale eyes him with suspicion. “I don’t want to know,” he tells Crowley, firmly. 

“You’re no fun.”

Aziraphale tugs gently on the other god’s hair. He’s started growing out long again, like he did in the early days. It’s lovely. 

“I’ve got work to do,” Aziraphale tells him. “There’s a conflict happening on one of those blasted space stations. People are dying, and they’re calling for me.”

“Great. You go ease the worries of the dying. I’ll go make a movie.”

“ _Crowley.”_

\--

There’s much more that happens. That’s how eternity goes. The world even tries to end again a few more times, though Heaven and Hell no longer have anything to do with it. 

Eventually, the clock runs out. Eventually, there’s not much left to save.

Crowley and Aziraphale stand on wall around a garden, watching the blood red sky as the meteors start tumbling down. It’s just the two of them, alone on the planet. All the humans have gone, the last of them just a few days before. There are colonies, out there, whole planets teeming with the ever-expanding human race. Their place is with their people. But it seems rude not to say goodbye to the place that had started it all.

“Well that went down like a led balloon,” Crowley remarks, grinning when Aziraphale shoots him a disapproving look. As if on cue, a great meteor lands and rocks the foundations of the ground beneath them. 

Aziraphale takes Crowley’s hand.

“They’re building a whole planet from scratch on their own, now, you know. Just outside Alpha Centauri. It’s quite clever, how they’ve worked it out.”

“What will we do, d’you think, when they get where we are? Or, hell, even surpass us?”

Aziraphale rests his head on Crowley’s shoulder, watching the world shatter to bits around the one tiny piece of it that their combined power holds together. “Be proud, I should think. Just be deeply, immensely proud.”

Crowley expands his wings. Aziraphale does the same.

“Angel?”

“Hm?”

“You did the wrong thing, back then.”

“And you did the right one,” Aziraphale agrees.

Crowley grins. “Well done, us.”

And they take to the stars, where humanity awaits.

\--

Fin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you all. Your kudos are great, your comments are transcendent. If you don't mind, I need to go lie down for a thousand years, now.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Orpheus Cure](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20955125) by [Literarion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Literarion/pseuds/Literarion)




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